


The Masks We Wear

by SummonerYuki



Category: League of Legends
Genre: Angst, Betrayal, Death, Drama, M/M, Mutilation, Sex, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-19
Updated: 2017-10-15
Packaged: 2018-05-27 14:10:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 27,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6287704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SummonerYuki/pseuds/SummonerYuki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zed, Shen, and their master set out to investigate the source of a string of violent genocides and murders spread over Zhyun. Their travels take them to the heart of the province in the midst of the Blossom Festival, where festivities bloom amidst tragedy.</p>
<p>Khada Jhin is an intriguing stagehand for a traveling performance group; Zed is a distraught man haunted by the images of mutilation and death he's found. The two strike up an odd relationship, one that Zed is all too anxious to drown himself in. He realizes too little too late that it could, quite literally, be the death of him.</p>
<p>Rated explicit for graphic depictions of death, violence, mutilation, and sex.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm in love with Khada Jhin and everything hurts

“You understand the gravity of this situation, I’m sure.”

Zed kept his eyes to the ground; he was uncomfortable in this decorated, open foyer, and the absence of his mask only made him feel even more exposed. The gazes of the councilmen around him were making his muscles twitch.

“Of course, Master,” Shen replied in his place, “in its entirety.”

“It’s a tragedy that such a small providence should experience such loss,” one of the dignitaries from Ionia added, with a chorus of grim agreement behind him, “but if he were to continue to the heart of Ionia on a similar scale, it would be the biggest loss of life we could ever experience from domestic terrorism.”

“This _Golden Demon_ is nothing more than a coward, nothing greater than a _man,”_ Master Kusho announced with palatable scorn in his voice, “and we will face him as such. Not a word is to be breathed to your fellow students, family, or friends of the mission we are about to embark on. Trust no one but yourselves and those in this room.”

“We will not fail you, Master Kusho,” Shen acknowledged, and Zed closed his eyes. His partner wasn’t relaxed necessarily, but he wasn’t a stone gargoyle like Zed felt he himself was. Shen was comfortable with these sorts of audiences after years of attending diplomatic embassies and being assigned detail for traveling royalty. He had everything someone like Great Master Kusho would be looking for: professionalism, neutrality, fast reflexes, and a demeanor not unlike his father’s. Everything, Zed felt, he did not.

“You leave in the morning,” a dignitary responded, adding with a slight drop in tone, “I have faith in your abilities, and I expect that no further large-scale loss of life shall occur. You not only have the faith of Zhyun behind you, but of Ionia as well.”

Zed rose a fraction of a second after Shen did, and the three of them—their master included—bowed. The dignitaries bowed back, and all lifted together. Zed picked a statue on the opposite side of the hall to stare at as his master spoke.

“I assume all travel arrangements have been set?”

“Indeed, cover and lodging as well. If you will, this map will show your route…”

Zed closed his eyes, and the voices around him blurred into nothing but static.

* * *

“You look ridiculous.”

The ninja turned at the sound of his partner's voice. Shen was smiling, in the way he always did when we was trying to keep the peace. The expression was a mixture of a grin and the look Zed imagined an amused father would give his troublemaking son. It mostly grated on his nerves, but he knew Shen always meant well.

“Like you look any better, Twilight,” Zed replied with a short, forced laugh. Shen laughed back lightly.

“Yes, I suppose that’s true. Zhyun isn’t the center of fashion, it seems.”

“Neither is Piltover, and yet that’s all people ever talk about these days. Didn’t know gluing gears to everything made it _fashionable.”_

Shen let out a laugh—a _true_ laugh—before his father shushed him.

“Mind your place,” he reminded them both firmly. He nodded in front of them, to where a large set of gates marked the entrance to the small providence of Zhyun. “We’re here for business, not pleasure.”

“Yes, master,” Shen replied almost mechanically, but Zed remained silent. _“We should pick something up for Akali,”_ Shen whispered over to him. “She was so upset for not being included, the _least_ we could do is bring her back something from this place. Maybe clothes, she’s always raving on about how interested she is in foreign fashion.”

“How shallow.”

“Maybe even some children’s clothes for Kennen.”

Zed glanced over at his partner, and the two of them quickly hid their faces in their cloaks to keep from snickering. Master Kusho made a sour noise of disapproval in front of them.

_“Next!”_

The three stepped up to the guards at the gate. Four towered above them in two separate lookout lofts, arrows resting in the nocks of their bows; six were below, armed to the teeth with enchanted guns and clad in thick armor. Immediately, Zed and Shen’s attitudes sobered.

“Purpose?” the guard asked shortly, and Kusho nodded back towards the mule and cart behind the trio.

“A simple merchant and his sons, looking for upkeep in Zhyun,” Kusho replied graciously, in a manner unlike his usual measured, regal speech. The guard nodded, and two others stepped forward.

“Amazing even a merchant would want to travel to Zhyun at this time,” the guard muttered as Zed and the others raised their arms to be pat down.

“Why is that?” Kusho responded with feigned ignorance. The pat-down finished, and the first guard nodded for the others to check the cart.

“There’s a monster loose in these woods,” he told him grimly. “We call it the _Golden Demon._ Slaughtered an outskirt village of herders not but three days ago.”

“A monster?” Shen questioned, and the guard nodded.

“No one’s lived to see it, so we can’t even imagine what it looks like. Some say it has horns. Some say it’s as large as a troll. Even others say it’s magic, a violent spell put on some poor creature by a deranged sorcerer.”

“And it hasn’t been caught yet?”

“Not in the slightest, neither hide nor hair. And there’s no use making wanted posters with a blank picture. Our people are scared.”

“Still want to sell here?” another guard asked, and the others let out grim chuckles. Kusho nodded.

“There’s not another town for miles, and Ionia's capital is still days away. My sons are weary. This town will do, for now.”

“Don’t say we didn’t warn you,” a guard replied pointedly, and this time, there was no laughter. Zed and Shen glanced at each other as the others called to let them pass. The gate doors creaked open, and after they were through, they closed behind them like the lid of a coffin.

“Shen. Zed.”

“Yes master,” they both replied, and they watched as Kusho pushed back his hood, revealing the red mane he’d dyed grey. There was a small moment of silence; then:

“Welcome to Zhyun.”

The weary providence spread before them like a cemetery.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT: Fixed a previous mistake where the providence "Zhyun" had been accidentally misspelled as "Khyun" several times.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: some defamatory and explicit language.

The fog that permeated the seaside town seemed to carry indoors, and the comforter of Zed’s bed felt moist as he sunk his hands into it. He let his nose wrinkle, looking up as Shen tossed his luggage onto his own bed.

 _“White Cliffs Inn,”_ the kinkou read off the embroidery on the edge of his pillowcase. “More like gray cliffs, really. Everything here is so… dull-looking.”

“They’re being chased by a _monster,_ what did you expect,” Zed deadpanned, and Shen half-snickered, half-sympathized.

“It says something about the murders if they couldn’t even consider a human had conducted them.”

“Or it says something about the people.”

“Hmm.”

Their door opened, and Kusho stepped inside.

“Dinner has been graciously provided by our hosts in the downstairs restaurant,” he told them, “and it is to start at six o’clock sharp. Dress in the best of the clothes provided to you.”

Shen and Zed gave each other looks, but replied in unison, “Yes, Master.”

Kusho nodded at them both. “We are fortunate to live in the circumstances we do. Please try to understand the situation Zhyun is in.”

He bowed his way out of the door, leaving the two ninja alone. They could both hear him enter the room adjacent to theirs, a thin wall separating the two of them.

“What do you say we explore the town a bit after dinner?” Shen asked, his voice low. Zed nodded, glancing out the only window in the room. Dusk was starting to fall, the blanket of fog roiling around the townspeople’s feet.

“Should we investigate the herder village?”

“Not without Master. If the Golden Demon doesn’t kill us, my father will for going without him. And I’m not that eager to die just yet.”

Shen was smiling, and Zed smiled back, though his stomach was turning uncomfortably. Though he had suggested it, he wasn’t sure if he was ready to face the Demon’s work just yet. The atmosphere of the town was setting him on edge, and the severity with which his master had painted the situation was unlike anything they’d ever faced before. Spirits were one thing; Shen’s spirit blade could cut through them, and the mentality that they were nothing but animals could be kept. But humans were… something different. Zed wasn’t sure if he was ready for how different it would be yet.

“Ready?”

Shen stood waiting at the door patiently. His usual navy wraps were replaced with a cream shirt and dull brown pants, a dark cloak draped around his wide shoulders. With his mask off, he was just a man, with messy chestnut hair and soft gray eyes not unlike his father’s. In the rare times they weren’t in uniform, the two were often mistaken for brothers, but it always eluded Zed as to why; with his midnight hair and scarred face, he thought they looked nothing alike.

 _If only we_ were _brothers._

“Yeah, ready.”

Zed pulled on two random pieces of clothing and a cloak similar to Shen’s, fastening it under his chin and letting it sweep out behind him as he strode towards the door.

“Do you have your blades on you?”

“Always.”

“Good ninja.”

Zed punched him in the arm.

* * *

“Your meals, sirs!”

A heavyset waitress with a pleasant face beamed at the three of them, setting a large cod decorated with herbs and lemon slices in the middle of the table. Servers behind her set plates of soup, glasses of water, and warm bread around it, utensils following.

“It’s not much, but it’ll fill you up, and you’ll find no better seafood in all of Ionia,” she added proudly, chest heaving as she settled back heavily on her feet with her hands on her hips. Master Kusho smiled gratefully at her.

“I don’t doubt it, ma’am,” he replied graciously. “Where we hail, fish is a delicacy, good fish even more so.”

“Sorry to hear that, but we hope you enjoy it even more! And just where are you handsome men traveling from?”

“A far providence. The road is our home,” Shen replied with a dazzling smile, and the waitress’s face visibly melted as Zed resisted rolling his eyes.

“Well aren’t you three just the cutest bunch!” she all but squealed, brushing her hand quickly against Kusho’s shoulder. “Just give me a holler if you need anything else!”

“Thank you, ma’am,” the three of them replied in unison as she bustled away, shooing her fellow servers along with her. Shen smiled after she left, and Kusho sighed.

“She seemed like a nice woman.”

“Indeed. Now, as to our… situation,” Kusho replied grimly, and Shen just let out an audible breath.

“Father, with all due respect,” he began, “it is late. We are all hungry and tired. Why not just enjoy the meal set before us and leave the heavy conversation for another time?”

Underneath the table, Shen set his foot on his partner’s, who bounced his heel up and down in response. Master Kusho seemed surprised, as much as years of remaining passive could allow him to be.

“…I suppose you’re right, there is nothing we would be able to do immediately, especially with the fog so low…”

“Let’s talk about that fog for a moment, shall we? I understand we’re by the sea, but visibility is just _ridiculous—”_

Shen’s stretch for a change in topic was interrupted by a burst of rowdy guffaws and laughter from a few tables over. The three of them looked for the source of the noise, all pausing in their eating to stare.

Several tables full of the most colorful, gaudy people any of them had ever seen were settling down across the room, laughing jovially and easily providing at least half of the noise in the room. Large burly men, tall beautiful ladies, short stocky dwarves—all of them gathered around in anticipation for food, heckling servers as they passed and shouting orders to random passersby.

“Quite the bunch, aren’t they?”

The ninjas looked up as the round woman from before paused at their table to refill their water glasses. A serving platter full of bread balanced on her other palm, clearly on its way to the other table.

“Who are they?” Kusho asked, Shen adding, “They don’t look as though they belong to this providence.”

“They don’t, that’s correct. They’re here for Zhyun’s Blossom Festival,” the woman replied, and her plump lips downturned into something like a small, thoughtful frown. “They’re here to entertain the councilmen and dignitaries from Ionia who travel to Zhyun for the festival. A talented group, for sure, but to have such festivity and to be so carefree in such a time of difficulty is a little…”

Her words dangled, caught between her personal feelings and her visage. Master Kusho nodded.

“I’m sure it leads to some conflicting emotions,” he offered, and the woman nodded, chewing on her lower lip for a moment.

“We’re sorry for the difficult time the town must be going through,” Shen added helpfully, and the hostess nodded, a smile returning her to her previous cheerfulness.

“We all are, but maybe some distraction is just what this town needs,” she acknowledged. All at once, her cheeks regained their rosiness, and she carefully balanced the water pitcher on her bread platter to reach over and pat Shen’s arm. “Some lovely boys you’ve got there,” she added with a wink in Kusho’s direction. She smiled at Shen, but when her eyes flickered to Zed, her gaze lingered for a fraction of a second too long on the large scar that cut across the bridge of his nose. Zed broke eye contact first.

“Thank you, they’re both wonderful young men,” Kusho responded with his eyes on his disciple, and the woman made a noise of agreement.

“Please let me know if there’s anything ya’ll need, don’t hesitate to ask.”

“Thank you. Much appreciated.”

After the woman had beamed and bustled off, Shen cleared his throat lightly.

“So, foreigners?” he asked nonchalantly, bringing a spoonful of soup up to his lips and blowing softly. “Any coincidence with the Golden Demon’s attacks? Seems convenient enough.”

“Oftentimes the most convenient answer is not the right one,” Kusho admonished, and Shen nodded sagely, though Zed was kicking him in irritation under the table. “All possibilities are worth looking into however, and any information we can gather about the troupe would not be information wasted. Perhaps we can look into it after better understanding what we’re dealing with tomorrow. We will head to the slaughtered village at dawn.”

“Do you think the troupe is staying within the limits of the providence?”

“Without a doubt. With its ports, Zhyun is considered a cultural hub of Ionia—if not a smaller one than most. But councilmen of the Ionian capital spend a generous amount of money and land accommodating their performing visitors to continue its support of the arts.”

“We passed slums on our way in,” Zed deadpanned, speaking up for the first time all supper. “How can Zhyun support foreign entertainers when it can’t even support its own people?”

“A question you already know the answer to, Zed,” Kyusho replied, his voice cropped. It took a moment before his expression softened. “Politics are often harshest to the people it’s meant to provide for. It doesn’t make it right, and it doesn’t make it fair. But no one is immune to it, not even us.”

Zed glared at the steaming fish on his plate before him. It looked unappetizing now, knowing he had never once wondered where his next meal was coming from. From the corner of his eye, he could see Shen lean towards him.

“Right now you’re here for a greater good, Zed,” he said, his words spoken softly but his voice uncondescending. “We’re here to combat something that affects the rich and the poor alike.” He paused for a moment before adding, “No one can escape politics, but no one can escape death either. Death is neutral, and we’re here to ensure that. Neutrality isn’t what the Golden Demon is providing, and that’s something we can aid everyone with.”

“…still doesn’t make it right,” Zed murmured, and the father and son at the table shuffled uncomfortably in agreement. He stared another moment at his food before pushing his chair back. “I’m not hungry—”

A tremendous crash followed by the sound of rancorous laughter exploded behind them, making all three of the ninja flinch. Zed turned round with a deadly glare already on his face, searching quickly for the source of the outburst.

Three young men seemed to be at the center of the laughter, sitting catty-cornered from each other at the end of one of the tables. A large one in a leopard-print leotard was waving his hands in the air faux-gracefully, while yet another hit the back of the third with tears of laughter in his eyes. Zed’s eyes narrowed; the third man—a small, thin little thing—had a plate of red meat turned over his head, his face as crimson as the sauce that was dripping from the tips of his hair.

“Ya gotta— _hic—_ man up eventually one of these days,” the man hitting his back was saying, wiping his hand on the small man’s shoulder every time meat and sauce splattered onto him. “Gotta eat some— _hiccup!—_ meat every once in a while.”

“Or you’ll wind up a pansy that won’t hold his own weight, let alone those of any others,” the leotard man added, the two of them guffawing at one another.

“Th-thank you, but I actually don’t eat meat…” the thin man muttered shyly as he carefully slid the plate from his head, handing it to a server who was waiting awkwardly with a towel. The other two booed and hissed at him, shooing the server away, but not before the large man seized the towel from the server’s arm and threw it over his own shoulder.

“Like you could actually make it onto stage in anything other than drag,” the leotard scoffed, making the thin man stiffen. The other large man snorted and raised his glass.

“Doesn’t eat meat… listen to this fuckin’ fairy. Of _course_ you eat meat, yer a goddamn _faggot—”_

A hand reached out and snatched the glass from the large man, slamming it back down so hard onto the table that the bottom of it shattered. The noise around the dining room ceased at the sound. A multitude of eyes stared at the amber liquid that came seeping out of the cracked glass, watching it crawl towards the edge of the table and eventually trickle in a steady stream down onto the large man’s lap. Like a practiced comedy skit, they all turned at once to stare at the man responsible for the disturbance.

Zed glowered, staring down both the large man and the man in the leopard-print leotard.

“You are _disturbing_ the guests of this inn,” he announced calmly, “and you are making a mess that _none_ of you will clean up. I suggest that you leave the patrons and _each other_ alone.”

The large man flinched as Zed reached toward him, but the ninja just grabbed the towel from his shoulder and threw it over the thin man’s head. The tiny thing jumped as Zed smacked his plate of untouched fish in front of him.

 _“Eat,”_ he ordered, and the man nodded vehemently.

“Ah, th-thank you—”

“And learn to stand up for yourself,” Zed interrupted with a snap, turning with an irritated sweep of his cape towards the door. He could feel his partner and his master staring, but his steps remained unperturbed, carrying him toward the door and up to his room and away from all the mess and the politics downstairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should have added "and Zed being an emo prick" in the chapter warnings but I mean what else is new lmao
> 
>  
> 
> EDIT: Fixed a previous mistake where the providence "Zhyun" had been accidentally misspelled as "Khyun" several times.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: none, other than "are Shen and Zed... flirting? I thought this was Zed/Jhin?"

A hand shook him awake, as if Zed had actually been able to sleep.

“You ready?”

“Yeah.”

“Fath—Master just went to sleep, we have a few hours if we leave now. The performance grounds sound like a good place to start.”

Zed nodded, swinging his legs out of bed. Shen was dressed the same as earlier, but this time his cloak bulked where it covered the twin blades on his back. Zed dressed the same, tying shurikens to the back of his belt under his own cape.

“Where is it?”

“After you left, I was able to ask the waitress away from the master about the performers and where they were housed. Their training grounds are on the outskirts of the village, but they stay in a complex funded by the Ionian council. If we go now, the training grounds should be deserted.”

“Good work, Detective Kinkou.”

Shen narrowed his eyes at him, his mouth drawn up like a bow. “That would make you Gumshoe Ninja,” he quipped back. “And if _that_ title doesn’t get you laid then, well, you’re just out of luck, Zed.”

“I really don’t want to hear _you_ talk about my sex life, Shen,” Zed snarked back. “Not when you’re the good boy of Ionia. The only girls you could get are the grannies who thought your dad was hot back in the day.”

Shen’s face colored deeply, making Zed genuinely laugh.

“That wasn’t a very disciplined comment—” he started as Zed went for the door, Shen trailing along behind him.

“Just keeping it _equivalent,_ Mister Twilight. I know how much equilibrium really gets you going.”

“Let’s just… travel in silence, please.”

* * *

The training grounds of the performers were indeed deserted, but in the same way an abandoned amusement park was: empty, but with the threat that it could come alive at any moment. Strings of colored flags waved like ghosts, and windchimes clicked against each other like bones. The whole place was eerie in the fog, and though neither said a word, the two ninja remained close to one another.

“…I’m not even sure where to begin,” Shen muttered as they made their way through the maze of tents and stalls. He outwardly shuddered for a moment. “Feels like one of those terror halls in Demacia. Don’t ask me _why_ those are considered entertainment.”

“If the crimes are so hideous, weapons like that couldn’t just be kept out in the open. The tents would be the perfect cover,” Zed replied, choosing to focus on their reason for coming. An empty bag blew past him, and he tried to keep his calm as he skittered away from it. “I say we search the tents while we can.”

“Good thinking, Gumshoe.”

The two of them poked through a few stalls and small tents, trying not to disturb the inane amount of costumes, stacks of face paints, hoops, bowling pens, and odds and ends. The largest tent of the grounds loomed in the distance, their final destination.

“I’m not seeing anything,” Shen sighed as they made their way through yet another tent, this time belonging to the opening cabaret. He shivered and furiously swiped at the few loose feathers that had stuck in his hair from the many costumes and boas kept in the tent. “Nothing vaguely menacing, nothing smells of blood or death. Even the swords the performers swallow are dulled.”

“The most dangerous things here are the animals,” Zed agreed, and they both cast looks at the cages to the side. A few primates screamed at them, an elephant trumpeted, and razorfins painted in clown colors shuffled, agitated. The two of them slowly sidestepped away from the cages. “Our last try would probably be the big tent.”

He threw a hand weakly to the last looming tent, which seemed as large in diameter as the motel they’d set up in. They both paused for a moment, as if seeing who’d step up first, before steeling themselves and walking together.

The tent looked as dead as the grounds outside, but upon entering, both were surprised to see the inside lit up like a tree during the holidays. Strings of lights across the top of the tent shone, with pillars of torches casting dancing shadows on the canvas walls. The air gave off an atmosphere of performance, and though both expected to see clowns juggling on unicycles and elephants performing and girls laughing and dancing, the tent was bare save for a single performer.

In the middle of the tent, in an empty ring, a single figure dangled.

Long crimson silks draped from the ceiling to the floor, and a man rested midway between them, trapped in the ribbons like a fly in a web. No safety net was below him, but he moved without a care in the world. Clad in only a dark pair of leggings and a sleeveless white shirt, the performer weaved in and out of the ties, twisting and turning through them. In one moment, he seemed as if he were walking on solid ground, with the silks stretched taut; but not a second later he was falling through water, a crimson river pouring around his body. It was almost as if he were merely a puppet, with some unseen power pulling his stringed limbs.

Zed was not awed.

“Well if _that_ isn’t suspicious then I don’t know what is.” Shen cleared his throat next to him before shouting, _“You there!”_

The figure paused mechanically with his back towards them.

“Don’t you know there’s a demon on the loose?”

The man’s head turned a mere fraction at the words, and after a moment of silence, he descended the silks. Zed and Shen watched silently as he kept his feet out level before him, sliding quickly down the silks before coming to an abrupt stop just above the ground. His outstretched legs lowered, and his feet delicately met the ground.

“…I wasn’t aware.”

The man’s voice was strong and almost lyrical, his words echoing around the empty tent. With his arms still outstretched and wrapped in silks, and his body balanced on pointed toes, he looked as though he was waiting for applause from an invisible audience. Though he was thin, his arms looked strong, with shoulders that glistened and rippled as he turned his body to look back at his visitors. Dark, rugged hair draped around his face, glistening with drops of sweat beneath the burning lights of the tents.

“It’s advised that villagers remain indoors past sunset. Performers included,” Shen continued, and the man’s feet settled on the ground. “We can escort you out.”

“How very… _thoughtful_ of you.”

The crimson silks slid like snakes from his arms, draping to the ground and releasing him. He turned to walk towards a pile of ivory cloth and a water bottle a few paces away from him. The cloth was a poncho that he threw over his shoulders, and he drained the bottle quickly before finally turning his attention to the two men. The hair on the back of Zed’s neck raised; amber eyes flashed beneath dark hair, but the expression on the man’s face was calm, pleasant even.

“A demon, you say?” he began as he got closer. The performer was tall, and were he not thin as well, Zed may have felt threatened. He stopped a few feet in front of them. “So why are _you two_ out at this hour?”

Zed and Shen glanced at each other quickly, Shen’s eyes wide.

“Uhh… safety in numbers,” the Kinkou replied lamely as his partner barked, “We got _lost.”_ The young man before them let out a small _ah._

“We’ll escort you back to the performance quarters,” Zed added with some conviction, and the artist nodded.

“Much appreciated. To whom do I owe the pleasure?”

“Shen.”

“…Zed.”

“A pleasure to meet you both,” the young man replied with a thin smile. He nodded towards the exit, and the ninjas turned, marching ahead of him. Zed found himself glancing over his shoulder in distrust, but only a small, graceful smile reflected back at him.

“So who are _you?”_

“Ah, I am a nobody.”

“You got a name?” Zed all but growled as they exited the tent into the cool night air, and the man nodded.

“Why yes, of course, my apologies. My name is Khada Jhin,” the performer replied, and the thin smile widened to show the hint of a full, straight set of teeth. They practically glowed beneath the sparse light of the moon, which casted shadows beneath his sharp eyes. When he saw he had both Shen and Zed’s attentions, the smile widened until his teeth were bared. “And it is a genuine _pleasure_ to make your acquaintance.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter is taking me a little longer to finish than I thought, just because it's... ah... a little gross? But it should be up soon! :) Thank you for your patience!!
> 
> (In other news, I am now a college graduate, so my writing and art can hopefully get a little more attention now! Hooray!! I'm hoping to draw some fan art soon!)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: explicit descriptions of gore and human mutilation.

The field stunk of carrion and vomit. The brown clay had turned red, and the low mist of Zhyun clung to the broken bones of the dead.

Zed had seen death in his life, had seen destruction and violence. Spirits could decimate entire villages in one breath, could shatter a man’s bones from the inside without leaving so much as a mark on the surface. But those were soulless animals with no intention other than displaying power, much like a wild animal asserting dominance. Their cruelty was neutral, their targets unbiased. But this…

This was _torture._

The undercover guards that had led them to the field stayed outside its boundaries, and for understandable reasons. Further and further into the village, it was becoming more and more difficult to discern whether they were stepping in mud or viscera. Crows taunted them as they walked past, warning them with beaks up and feathers ruffled to keep away from their feast.

Shen’s stomach had been the first to go.

“There is no shame in being sickened by the cruelty of man.”

Kusho’s voice had been strong, but his words seemed to be for himself rather than his son. Zed had considered saying something to aid his friend, but just the mere thought of opening his mouth and letting in the reeking stench around him made him gag.

The village was wholly deserted, with fields of wilting crops and scavengers the only signs of life. What had been the local population lay scattered between houses and manmade roads. They were laid out like puzzle pieces, with limbs and torsos tangled to fill each other; if one piece didn’t fit, the limbs were dislocated, broken, and twisted to comply. The bodies of men, women, and children—even those not but a few months old—shared a part of the human road. They were all spiraled to lead towards one destination: the center of the village.

Zed’s feet moved him forward, even if every nerve in his body was rioting, telling him to _run, boy, run, you won’t like what you see._ As they got closer, his vision started to spin, and he could hear Kusho suck in a breath behind him.

“By the Void…”

A literal tower of bodies sagged like a beacon of despair and death in the middle of the village. The bindings explained where all the livestock of the village had gone: the barbed metal wire of the cattle fences cut into the flesh of the villagers, keeping them wrapped together. This time, rather than puzzle pieces, they were laid out like wallpaper, overlapping one another so that not a singular patch of the statue was not covered in skin. Many of the faces were torn by the wire, and only hollowed, blackened eye sockets remained where the crows and vultures had plucked them clean. The decaying bodies were indistinguishable from one another, their lives as well as their humanity stripped from them. The air seemed so quiet for so many people to be in one place, and only the sound of fat crows and Shen grasping his father and retching echoed throughout the field.

The sculpture was like something disturbing, yet beautiful; Zed couldn’t tear his eyes away from it, even as his breakfast gagged his throat and his stomach rebelled. It was two to three times taller than himself, and he found himself wondering how even one “demon” could manage such a feat. It likely would have had to have been done all in one night or the risk of being caught would be too high. Supposedly, the village had been found while the blood on the ground was still fresh.

“…this was planned, meticulously, just as the rest of the slaughters in the mountains were. Most were fashioned after symbols, but I’m not understanding this. This is just a slaughter.”

Kusho’s words rattled hollowly through Zed’s chest. His eyes searched the bodies, meeting each and every one of the carved eye sockets, until something made him pause. Something dark and thin was pushed down the throat of one of the bodies higher on the totem. He couldn’t chalk up his movements to pure morbid curiosity, but his hands acted on their own as he stepped forward to reach for the object, crushing a few rotting body parts beneath him. He gave a few tugs, and after a moment, it slid from the body’s throat, letting its broken jaw drop carelessly.

It was a tree branch. Dried, dead blossom buds poked from the body of the bough, and as he reached up to touch one, it cracked at his delicate touch and fell to the ground. Zed looked up, and now that he was searching for it, found that several other of the bodies had branches rammed down their gaping mouths. The branches only rested in the maws of the higher bodies, and some of them grew thicker as the height climbed. He stared at the body of the sculpture.

_Don’t do this._

He reached forward again.

Kusho was undoubtedly telling him to stop, but his words were dull and fuzzy in Zed’s head as he peeled apart the villager’s bodies. The barbed cattle wire of the totem sliced through his hands as he pushed it aside, and his fingers dug through soft rot and decay to move aside the human wallpaper. Broken, disintegrating limbs fell with soft _thuds_ into the mud, and even a torso—whose attached head and waist were both caught between the unforgiving razers of the wire—collapsed with a tremendous _splash_ next to Zed’s feet, splattering him with mud and gore. He kept going until he found what he knew he would. He took one more look around him, seeing a wide circle of stones around the sculpture, before looking back towards his hands.

“It’s a _tree.”_

Zed stared at the gory fingers that now splayed on the trunk of the tree in the middle of the villagers. Between them, his eyes focused in and out on a heart carved into the bark, with initials in it that he could no longer read through weather and decay. Several other marks were made into the trunk here and there, in various stages of freshness, and suddenly the sculpture made sense to him.

The paths of bodies lead to the heart of the village, where a single, mighty tree stood. Initials of lovers, dates, events, even some small graffiti were etched into the trunk; if Zed was willing to speculate, he could imagine that this tree had stood as long as the village had, and that it was probably as old—if not older—than some of its inhabitants. To base a village around a tree, to grow life from it…

It made sense that the village should die with it as well. And the tree was, indeed, now dead; the branches had been cut off and left to die in the throats of its caregivers, and it seemed its surface roots had been sawed off, because no evidence of them were left in the ground. The Golden Demon had built a sculpture, one that said he could find what was dear to his victims and take it away from them.

This was not a slaughter, but a _performance._

Above his fingers, he could register a small, carved lotus, the freshest of the marks in the trunk. His mouth opened—to speak what, he wasn’t sure—and the fetor of death and decay filled his mouth and lungs.

Zed’s knees sunk into the mud beneath him, and he couldn’t remember much after that.

* * *

“…hey, you awake yet?”

Zed’s head pounded, but he willed a muscle in his hand to twitch, and his partner took that as a sign of consciousness.

“About time, you’ve been out for a while. It was hell carrying you back, but I mean… at least carrying you helped me think about something else.”

A small _thud_ sounded, and Zed could feel the bedside table rattle next to him.

“I brought you some soup, if you want it. Just vegetables.” He paused pointedly, letting the information sink into Zed’s head. “Y’know, ’cause… yeah. I’ll feed it to you if you want.”

“…I’mn…”

He could hear Shen shuffle forward. “What was that?”

“…I’m…n…ot… a fucking… _child…”_

There was a poignant pause, and finally, Shen let himself chuckle.

“Yeah, don’t I know it. You weigh a fucking _ton_ dude.”

“Shut the fuck up…”

Shen laughed. Zed could hear him rise, and a moment later, he felt his weight settle on the end of the bed. Shen’s mass moved from the side of the bed to the head of it, laying next to his partner.

“…I puked a lot.”

“No shit.”

“I’ve never seen anything like that. Spirit world, corporeal world… nothing.”

“Hmm.”

“I can’t believe you touched the damn thing.”

Zed forced his eyes open, and he tilted his head down to look at his hands. They were red, as if they’d been scrubbed clean, and fresh white bandages were wrapped around his palms and a few of his fingers. He flipped his hands over slowly—back and forth, back and forth—before looking down at the rest of him. His chest was bare, and though he could feel a pair of underwear on him, his legs were clear too.

“We kinda had to trash your clothes.”

He looked over at Shen, who was shirtless as well. His dark hair was in thick, bundled strands, evidence of a recent shower.

“…did Master—”

“No, it was me.”

Zed let his gaze tilt back to the ceiling as he sighed. “The last thing I would have wanted was for your dad to have seen my naked ass after being hauled miles back into a shitty hotel.”

“What makes you think I wanted to see it either?”

Zed snorted in spite of himself, and Shen let out a pleasant hum.

“Where’s the master now?”

“At the performance grounds. I offered to stay with you until you woke up. He said we could join him whenever you were feeling better.”

Zed had started to swing his legs from the bed before Shen had even finished his sentence. His knees were sore, and his muscles felt tired, as if they’d been clenched the entire time he slept. Which, he thought fairly, they probably had been. He glanced over at the soup Shen had brought him; whether it had meat in it or not, it seemed wholly unappetizing.

“I’m fine. Let’s go.”

“Are you sure? It’s pretty late, you haven’t eaten since breakfast—”

“Not hungry. Let’s go.”

Shen made a noise like a disgruntled mom but let it go. He rolled out of bed a moment later, trudging over to his own bed to drag his pack of clothes out from underneath it.

“Master won’t be happy if you’re not in peak condition—”

“If he has a problem he can take it up with me directly.”

“I’m just saying, Zed,” Shen replied tiredly, “starving yourself isn’t going to make these killings stop any quicker. This is serious. If you’re not working at your best and taking care of yourself, you could get hurt. You and so many others.”

 _“Shen._ I said I’m _fine.”_

“I’ll trust you, but if I think you’re lying to me, I won’t hesitate to tell the master to send your ass back to the temple until you can get ahold of yourself.”

Shen’s voice was strong—the same one he used when he chastised the younger disciples at the temple—and Zed’s jaw set. He knew his partner wasn’t making hollow threats.

“…I understand.”

“Good. Let’s go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why did I write this chapter during my lunch break while eating meat, WHY :(
> 
> Even though it is significantly different, I kept thinking of the human totem pole from Hannibal while I wrote about the twisted tree(line.....). So in case it wasn't disturbing enough for you, somewhere out there exists a decent visual :/
> 
> I was going to extend this chapter into what would be the next one, but I figured both Shen and Zed had had enough for a bit, so the return to the circus will come next chapter. Kind of getting more into building for plot and stuff, hope you enjoyed!! :)
> 
>  
> 
> EDIT: Fixed a previous mistake where the providence "Zhyun" had been accidentally misspelled as "Khyun" several times.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter in particular is dedicated to someone purely for the sake of "thank you for bearing with me." You know who you are <3
> 
> No chapter warnings apply.

Both Shen and Zed had to act surprised as they wandered onto the performance training grounds, as if they’d never seen the place before. Both weren’t much into theatrics, but while in their master’s sight, they wandered back and forth a few times as if lost before Kusho called them over. He was standing before the largest of the tents, chatting with the ringleader of the performance group.

“…Master, these are my sons, Shen and Zed,” Kusho announced with a small wave of his hand as they approached. “You two, this is Master Hasin, the ringleader of this troupe.”

“Please, Sterling is fine,” the Master replied with a graciousness that still dripped with pretention. Shen offered his hand good-naturedly, and Zed forced himself to do the same. “I was surprised to find your father here this morning, but it’s always a pleasure to meet a traveller such as myself. These grounds hold no secrets, all are welcome to view the delights and wonders my performers have to offer.”

“My sons and I were interested in seeing your show, so I was wondering if we could view the grounds. Just to see that we were getting our money’s worth, you know, what with wealth not really being a luxury of ours.”

The corners of the ringleader’s eyes looked vaguely annoyed, but he responded with a grand smile. “Why of course, make yourselves at home. Please, if there is anything we can do to aid you, feel free to get the attention of any of the stagehands in white. Ah, here— _Khada!”_

The ringleader bellowed at someone behind them, and the person came skittering over with an armful of clothes and costumes. For a moment, the leader’s façade dented, and his upper lip curled in disgust.

 _“Khada,”_ he began, as if spitting a foul taste from his mouth, “I thought I asked you to wash these this _morning.”_

He pointed to the pile of cloth in the man’s arms. The stagehand kept his head bowed, face hidden behind sweat-soaked locks. His breath was ragged, and it was obvious he’d been working vigorously for quite a while.

“M-My apologies Master Hasin, you see, some of the performers wished for their current costumes to be altered first, so I set to do that before washing these—”

“I didn’t ask for excuses. Just do your job.” Sterling Hasin lifted one of the dirty costumes with a pinched forefinger and thumb, letting out a small scoff of repugnance before flicking it back at his stagehand’s face. “For _now,_ please escort our esteemed _guests_ around the grounds where they please. I expect these costumes to be washed and returned to their rightful owners before sundown. We all earn our dinner here, and if you won’t work then you shouldn’t expect to eat tonight.”

Thoroughly disgruntled now, the ringleader spat a neutral-at-best well wish to the master before storming off. The four of them stood for a moment just to watch him before turning to look towards one another. Zed looked up at the stagehand right as he raised his eyes, and the thin man let out a small jump as the ninja opened his mouth slightly.

_Ah, the performer from the night before—_

“Ah!”

Shen was the one to make a noise before he could stop himself. Zed snapped his head over towards his partner, and Kusho glanced over with vague interest.

“Shen?” he questioned, but his son just shook his head quickly.

“O-Oh, sorry, just looked like someone I knew!” the ninja babbled, and Zed wanted to slap him for being so obvious. Shen tried his best to recover, sputtering, “Ah, father, have you seen the elephants here? They have razorfins too, maybe we should look at those—”

He ushered the master away, giving Zed a pointed look before walking away with his father. Zed could just barely hear him suggesting they should keep their eyes peeled for anything suspicious, as if his behavior wasn’t the oddest thing they’d found so far in these grounds. After a moment, Zed turned his attention back to the stagehand, who bulked beneath his glare.

“…a stagehand, huh?” he spat, and the thin man cast his gaze elsewhere. “I didn’t know most stagehands moonlighted as performers.”

“Ah, please don’t tell my master—”

“Docile thing, aren’t you. What happened to the confidence of last night?”

The man looked conflicted for a moment before straightening his posture. Zed eyed him for a moment, deciding he had to be just shy of six and a quarter units—just a quarter above himself.

“I practice my aerial on my own time,” he replied, and Zed’s eyebrows rose just slightly at the dramatic change in his tone of voice. “It’s no concern of the master what I do in the free time I have.”

“Then I’m sure he’d be ecstatic to know his _rag boy_ is starring in his own show after hours.”

“My name is not _rag boy,”_ the man hissed back, and Zed folded his arms with a frown. “I believe I introduced myself last time we met, did I not?”

Zed let out a breath. “Yes, _Khada._ Though I met you under false pretenses.”

“You did nothing of the sort. My name is Khada Jhin, and I’m a _performer.”_

Zed eyed the man up and down for a moment, from his ripped black tights to his ragged ivory smock. With his back straightened and his face hard, he looked dignified even with his clothing in tatters and his arms laden with dirty laundry.

“…I will accept your name, but not your profession.”

Khada’s face soured, but he let the comment pass. “What are you doing back at the circus grounds?”

The ninja shrugged nonchalantly, tossing a hand in the air. “You heard your master,” he replied, “I’m interested in the show, I wanted to look around.”

Khada raised an eyebrow in feigned ignorance. “Interested in the show,” he deadpanned back, his voice haughty and slow. “Yes, I’m sure.”

“So I couldn’t give a crap about it, you have your secret and I have mine. Just show me around and let’s get this over with.”

“It would be my _pleasure.”_

Khada gave Zed the dirtiest look a stagehand could muster before turning swiftly on his heel, giving a single irritated flick of his wrist to signal for Zed to follow. The ninja did so grudgingly.

While he hadn’t exactly expected a grand tour of the place, the stagehand led him past the colorful tents of practicing performers and to the edge of the grounds. The scores of brilliant performers waned until the organization of the place turned to disorder. Stagehands dressed like Khada scrambled around back and forth, mending clothes while polishing objects and carrying bags of feed for the circus animals. Zed kept quiet, but he felt his scowl deepen as they walked; children scurried barefoot back and forth, laden with clothes, ropes, and performance props. Khada towered above them—tall and thin and ethereal—but made no move to assist even the smallest of the kids. Zed watched him scoff as one darted in front of him across his path. A few of the others offered greetings, but he floated past them as if he were above the rest.

“Stuck up.”

Zed wondered why he was even talking. His opinion didn’t matter, and fighting with someone who could call them into question was unwise to begin with. But something about the way the man carried himself—the way he spoke, the way he lorded over himself and others—rubbed him the wrong way.

“Excuse me?”

“You heard.”

“Rich, coming from a sneak. Are you a plant? Is that it?”

“A _what?”_

 _“You heard,”_ Khada mocked, his voice a deep, elongated drawl. “A plant. From another trope.”

“…circus espionage?”

“We are a wealthy, extremely successful travelling performance group. Anywhere there is money, we will be invited. It is not such a difficult concept to wrap even _your_ mind around.”

Zed let out a low growl at the verbal shot but didn’t speak. If the Golden Demon was a man, was it possible he was trying to sabotage the circus? There was no evidence at the circus of anything even remotely tying the village to the trope; had it been an enemy, evidence should have been planted. Zed tried to think about the performance-like display of the sickening scene he’d witnessed earlier; no, if there was someone trying to sabotage the troupe, the evidence would not be found. It would emerge in a performance just as grand, likely during a show.

“When is your first performance?”

The stagehand glanced back at him with a singular eyebrow raised, though his dark eyes looked bored rather than intrigued. “…in the coming week. Can’t wait to slink around there, too?”

“No private performances?”

Khada’s look soured slightly, and for a moment, his gait slowed. “Do you wish for me to just _expose_ the troupe as you please? Is that it?”

Zed felt himself visibly bristle. “I couldn’t care _less_ about this shitty circus,” he snapped back, “I just need to know.”

“Fine way of convincing me to tell you—”

The two stopped walking to glare at one another for a pointed moment.

“If you _must_ know, since I don’t particularly find you as a threat…” Khada sighed heavily, as if Zed had been pestering him for hours. He crossed his arms as he spoke, fanning the fingers of one hand lazily. “We have a private performance this weekend for a selected few in the city. Is that it? Is that what you came for?”

The idea of wealthy visitors and officials relishing in the light of a performance while a portion of their city struggled in squander made the ninja physically nauseous.

“…your ringleader has the gall to perform even when this city has just gone through disaster—”

“Speaking to me about this is worthless and hollow,” Khada interrupted harshly. “A proverbial _preaching to the choir.”_

Zed took a small step back. His eyes roamed up and down him for a second; seeing this proud man clothed in tatters as dirty children flew around him drove a different point home. Even on the other end they were all steppingstones; it was all about money, all about power.

“Aren’t you worried about the demon?” he asked in an absence of words, and Khada only laughed at him.

“Why should I be worried about a demon when I work for one?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm having some difficulty figuring out the degree of fidelity I'll have to Jhin's character, considering I'm looking back at the future chapters I'd written a while ago where he's basically some docile tsundere kitten that I'd apparently decided was like, two feet shorter than Zed (whoops). Now I'm rewriting it and he's just a dramatic asshole ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> RIP kitten Jhin, you could have been amazing nya~


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Longer chapter than normal for setup, interactions with Jhin will be in the next one. ✨
> 
> Chapter warnings: some language, lil bit of sexual themes, more dubious flirting between Shen/Zed.

“Fa—Master, isn’t our appearance at a private performance a little too… conspicuous?”

Shen kept his voice lowered as their Zhyun contacts buzzed around them, making last-minute preparations and amendments to their disguises. The master straightened his arms out from his sides as one of the men on the team adjusted his server’s uniform.

“Right now we don’t know what we’re dealing with, and Zed’s hunch is the only reasonable lead we have. If the Demon is possibly connected to the troupe, a private performance would be ideal for him to strike. Low audience, with plenty of important people to send a message with.”

Zed looked over as his partner glanced at him. He shrugged at Shen’s uneasiness.

“…what are we to do if we’re caught?” Shen asked, keeping his eyes on Zed. The ninja replied by dragging a thumb across his throat, and he succeeded in drawing a small, nervous smile from the kinkou.

“Say what you need to get out of it. We are blending with a team of unprofessional, for-hire workers. It wouldn’t be so out of place that us as travelers found company with them.”

Shen kept the uneasy look on his face, but nodded regardless. “I will do my best.”

The three were soon shuffled out of their hotel room and dumped unceremoniously on a street corner, directed to the private theater they would be working in that night. Indeed, a large amount of uniformed workers were present, but all in varying states of self-management: one sported a scruffy beard, while another smelled rancid. Zed found his nose wrinkling both at the smell and the thought of having to work with these people for the rest of the night. As soon as they entered the theater, however, the smell was soon missed.

Wafts of expensive perfumes and colognes assaulted them all immediately, making the ninja gag and the kinkou next to him cover his mouth and nose. They entered through the kitchens, but even over the aroma of appetizers and food the smell was too much.

“Alright, listen up, listen up,” one of the organizers called over the group where they were gathered in a corner of the kitchen. “Hey, _listen,”_ he snapped at a few of the more unprofessional servers, grabbing their attentions. One of them—a large, bearded man with scraggly braids hanging over his shoulders—grumbled but settled down. “The alcohol will go out first, with starters of champagne. Half of you will go out to serve, just to whet their appetites. The other half will follow soon up with cheese platters. Work well, make a good impression, and reap the benefits of their fat pockets.”

A few snickered, but for the most part, silent nods waved through the group. The organizer nodded back.

“I need the cleanest and the youngest to head towards the balconies. You there—” He gestured at Shen, pointing a little off to the side. “You, you, you, and you—” He flicked a forefinger at Zed last. He hesitated at the sight of the scar over the bridge of his nose, but waved him off all the same. “All of you grab a dish of glasses and head towards the balconies. Our chefs will personally deliver the cheeses and appetizers.”

The organizer waved them off, and another pointed them towards serving trays full of champagne flutes.

“Grab one and follow me.”

Upon reaching the balcony, it was apparent why the organizer had called for such specific instructions: the lights were lowest on the balcony, but the sparse crowd of people seated at the small tables before them sparkled radiantly. Large jewels adorned the neck of every woman on the balcony, and mechanical corsage pieces shimmered and whirred on the lapel of every man. The moving techmaturgical decoration spoke of Piltover finery and absurd wealth.

“Each of you, pick a table and schmooze,” their group leader ordered, voice low. “If they tip you, act like you’ve never seen money before in your life. You didn’t hear this from me, but tips are split at the end of the night. Put half of what you earn in your breastpocket and the rest where the sun don’t shine if you don’t want to be patted down for it. Good luck, and stay sharp.”

The organizer clapped his hand on Shen’s shoulder—who was closest to him—before nodding and excusing himself down the server’s staircase. Shen glanced at Zed once before lifting his chin and forcing himself towards a table.

“Excuse me, madams, may I interest you in a drink…?”

Zed steeled his stomach as he watched the others disperse around him, tousling their hair into submission and plastering large, false smiles on their faces. Zed tried his best to do the same, convinced his smile was nothing short of menacing. He hated the thick red uniform he’d been stuffed into, with stiff sleeves that disallowed much movement and a loud gold trim. The tips of the daggers hidden on his body prodded at him with every step he took, and as he bent over an unserved table with a pained smile cut across his face, he could feel a knife in his sleeve scrape across his wrist.

“Drinks?” was all he managed, and the company at the table—a young woman and three older men—ceased conversing for a moment to take notice of him. The young woman giggled and cocked her head to the side, raising a jeweled fan to hide the lower half of her face.

“Quite the scars you have there, sonny,” one of them quipped lightly as he reached for a glass. The rest of the men took one, with the lady raising the fingertips of her other hand to decline. Zed tried to keep the twitching smile on his face.

“Uhh… yes,” he replied awkwardly. The woman giggled again.

“War takes a toll on the best of us,” one of the others sighed, tipping back in his chair to sip at his champagne. “Yes, the best of us…”

“As if you’ve ever been to war,” the last admonished, and all four tittered and laughed.

“Well _I_ find your decoration rather… _intriguing,”_ the woman finally piped up. She waved her fan and fluttered her eyelashes as Zed looked up at her. A beautiful woman, the ninja decided, were her words not so shallow and ugly.

“…thank you,” he murmured, and she winked at him before he cast his eyes downward.

“Now now, don’t give the lady any reason to have a swollen head. Women, am I right? Will go after any young thing! Ah-ha!”

They all laughed greatly and tutted to themselves as Zed quietly excused himself. Before he could escape, however, the woman at the table whistled for him to return.

“Ignore those old fools, they are envious they can’t satisfy a lady in their senile age,” she purred at him from behind her fan. Looking closer, the woman’s eyelashes were beset with small crystals, so that they shimmered when she blinked. “Here, please accept this token of my admiration…”

With little ceremony, the lady produced a folded wad of bills from a purse in her lap, reaching up to tuck it daintily in the front pocket of Zed’s uniform. He thanked her with as much syrup as he could drip into his voice, and she seemed to eat it up, revealing her mouth for a moment to lean up and kiss the scar that laid waste to his face. She smelled like cotton candy and liquor, and the place where her lips had met his face felt sticky and uncomfortable.

Zed awkwardly parted from the table, wiping his face with his sleeve once his back was turned and glancing around for Shen as chefs weaved past him with plates of cheeses and cubes of meat. He was excusing himself from a shrieking table of four older women, several of them pulling at the sleeves of his uniform in an effort to make him stay longer. Eventually he stumbled away and back towards his partner.

“I-I, uhh… there was—” Shen bumbled through his words, face bright red. Zed couldn’t help the smirk on his face; his partner had lipstick smudges and lip prints in differing shades of red all over his face and neck, a few of them staining the collar of his uniform.

“If the whole following-in-your-father’s-footsteps thing doesn’t work out, you could always work at a brothel for the elderly,” the ninja offered, and Shen’s face ignited. His mouth spread taut into a thin line of embarrassment and displeasure, and Zed just laughed at him, offering his last unclaimed glass of champagne.

“…you’re not funny, Zed,” Shen complained, but his voice was too unconvincing, so the ninja just laughed at him.

“Careful, Shen, lest you seduce me, too.”

Shen kept his mouth shut, though his face spoke for him. Glancing around, he snatched the flute, gulping it down in one go and nearly breaking the stem as he slammed it back down on Zed’s tray.

“Ohh, the boy can drink—”

“Shut. Up.”

Zed snickered but didn’t add anything more, following him back to the kitchens to refill his tray.

The rest of the night passed slowly and without any significant incidents, to the point where Zed’s nerves were rioting and the knives in his sleeves were starting to stain his uniform’s gold trim red. Every noise above speaking level sent him into nervous fits, nearly spilling drinks as he jumped and glanced around. Shen kept sending him discerning looks from across the room, and one overseer even mildly suggested he was a tweaker, but the inaction bothered him more than if someone were to set fire to the place.

The performance was nothing special, just the run-of-the-mill jugglers, dancers, and wild animal acts. Zed had seen better shows at home when the monks put on their yearly act to benefit the orphans they cared for. Illusions of magic and whimsy combined with children running around the stage and laughing was far better than being in the presence of the haughty aristocrats he was serving, with their false laughter and even faker hairpieces. It made his skin crawl, and more often than not he forced his eyes back to the stage, telling himself it was to watch for danger when the truth was he just couldn’t _take it anymore._

The only performance of even mild consequence during the night came towards the end of the show, when a nearly-naked woman descended from the ceiling of the stage. What few strips of clothing she did have on sparkled like thousands of glittering jewels, as if she were a gift from beyond. Her body was wrapped in crimson stripes, and as she let herself twist down them until the tips of her toes just barely brushed the stage floor, Zed realized it as a silks performance like he’d seen a few nights before. The woman was clunky in her movements, however, and more often than not it seemed as if the silks were controlling her rather than the two working in tangent. The audience didn’t seem to mind, though; glancing around, the ninja could see most eyes on her, a few of the men stroking their beards in intense concentration as they used little imagination to fantisize what was beneath the performer’s sparkling costume. With equal parts bemusement and disgust, he even caught the cotton candy woman from before with her fan to her face, ears bright red as she fidgeted in her seat with her hand between her legs. Soon enough the act was over, the loudest of applause for the night roaring around the theater. Zed’s shoulders tightened, listening for anything out of the ordinary, but soon enough it was over, and the patrons chattered as they began to collect their belongings and head towards the exits. A moment before turning his attention away from the stage, a tall figure strode across it, and Zed’s eyes followed its familiarity.

_Ah. That stagehand._

Khada Jhin’s self-important stride was recognizable even from the balcony of the theater, and as aristocrats streamed past him in an attempt to make it to the stairwell, Zed weaved his way against the flow towards the rail of the floor.

The woman detangled herself from the silks, shaking a few off and fighting when they tangled around her arms. Khada reached out to release her whenever they did, deftly loosening knots and pulling her arms through the fabric. Eventually she was free, spinning on a heel and kicking up the glittering trail of her costume. The moment she took a step towards the back of the stage, however, her arms flailed wildly as she tripped. Zed watched as one of Khada’s long arms flew out to catch her, almost as if he’d anticipated the fall. Expecting a show of gratefulness, Zed’s eyebrows rose as the woman turned and slapped him hard across the face, gesturing sharply towards the back of her outfit before pointing at his feet and jabbing a finger in his face after.

“She thinks he tripped her?”

Shen joined him at the rail, crossing his arms to lean next to his partner. The theater was all but clear now, muted voices and laughter coming from the ballroom where the crowd had gathered after the show. Zed shrugged, watching for another moment as Khada bowed his head. The woman stormed off, snapping her fingers at him, and the stagehand leaned down to grasp at the glittering trail of her outfit to carry it during her exit.

_Pathetic._

“I’m ready to go. This was a waste of time.”

Zed turned on his heel and barely tried not to stomp towards the hallway towards the kitchen, Shen offering behind him, “Well, we were here if anything were to happen during the performance, so better safe than sorry. Can you imagine what the Golden Demon would have done with all these people here?”

Zed’s stomach turned in the wake of answering.

The cool air of the night was refreshing, and Zed took in a deep breath as he stepped out of the building, filling his lungs with air devoid of perfume and lies. Shen breathed a sigh of relief behind him, unsnapping the front buttons of his uniform and stretching his arms over his head.

“And I thought the training clothes they had us wear as children were suffocating,” he commented blissfully, rolling his neck back and forth on his shoulders. “Do you remember those? The sacks they had us wear to keep us all equal—”

Zed had already began walking to the corner their informants had dropped them at, but a noise in the distance made him pause, foot in midair. Shen had heard it too, because his chattering stopped, and instead his arms were at his sides, fingers just inches away from the twin blades in his waistband.

“Where?” was all he asked, and Zed took off.

Closer and closer, the sound was beginning to take form into the eerie noises of a struggle, and a small shiver of excitement snaked its way up Zed’s spine at the sound of a man pleading for help.

Finally, something to take his anger and anxiety out on for the night.

“P-Please stop, somebody help us—!”

The man’s pleas were almost drowned by the rough yelling of another telling him to shut up and hand over his money and possessions. As Zed’s feet skidded to a halt on the pavement before an alleyway, he saw that it was not two men but six; three of them were dressed like the aristocrats at the theater, and the other three had the uniforms to match their disguises. Two of the aristocrats cowered against the back wall, but one found himself trapped by the largest of the three thieves, his throat crushed in the beefy hand of one of the servers. Zed recognized him, his mind momentarily flickering to a mental image of the bearded man with scraggly braids standing next to him in the kitchens. The man in his grasp struggled against him, but his fat fingers did nothing to pry him away, gasping as lack of oxygen quickly weakened his cries for help. His eyes flickered down the length of the alleyway, and as they caught on Zed—eyeballs bulging as his face began to turn from red to blue—the distraction was just enough to make the braided man turn towards him.

One flick of Zed’s wrist and suddenly the man was falling, a knife embedded between the cross of his eyes.

“What the fu—”

One of the other servers set his feet, brandishing a long serrated dirk before him and letting out a rough yell as he tried to rush the ninja. Zed sidestepped it with minimal effort, so quickly that an imprint of his shadow still seemed to hover in the air as the man swung at him wildly. He turned his head towards the third, knowing Shen would have his back, and he didn’t so much as flinch as the dull _crack_ of the man’s skull hitting the ground echoed behind him and reverberated down the length of the alleyway. The third man jumped, and without hesitation, turned and sprinted away, stumbling and flailing as he tripped over the trash of the alley but continued to run. Zed stared pointedly at the first of the men, watching the lack of movement in his chest before striding over to take his knife back. The two men against the wall gasped and whimpered as he drew near, clinging to each other, but the ninja just retrieved his blade with little ceremony, wiping it on the leg of his uniform pants before returning it back up his sleeve.

“…y-you! It’s you!”

He was stopped as someone grabbed his arm, and as he turned back in displeasure, he was met with the tear-streaked face of the ringleader of the travelling circus. The man’s eyes were still slightly bulging, and in a moment Zed’s nose wrinkled at the smell of the piss that dripped down the front of the man’s expensive trousers. The ringleader kept his grasp on the man’s arm, his other shaking hand raising up to join the tight grip.

“Y-You saved my life boy, you… you saved it, that man, he was going to kill me—” His voice trembled something ferocious, but the gratefulness in his eyes was real. “You’re name, uhh, it’s… Sa…”

“Zed,” the man replied flatly, and the Sterling Hasin corrected himself quickly as if he’d known it all along.

“Zed—Zed, my boy, that was incredible, you saved our lives, they wanted to take our money, they would have killed us for it—” He swallowed hard, gasping to maintain his breath, before stuttering out, “Let me hire you, you are clearly skilled—”

“No, thank you.” Zed turned to walk towards his partner when he was yanked back again, the man’s hands still gripping tightly to his forearm.

“Then let me repay you, as thanks,” Hasin insisted, squeezing hard and locking his fingers against the ninja’s arm, even when Zed’s nose upturned into a displeased snarl. The man shook a little more upon seeing it, but kept talking. “Tomorrow there’s a show, a special viewing for the mayor and his counselors, kept away from the media and by invitation only. As thanks, why not...” He paused, glancing over Zed’s shoulder at his partner before finishing in a slightly lower voice: “Why not join as my guest, as an _exclusive_ invitation? Join me, boy— _Zed,_ and we can discuss your employment in this town.”

Every part of Zed’s body told him to shake the man off of him—or better yet, toss him down the alleyway into the garbage where he belonged—but he could feel Shen’s insistent gaze behind him, imploring that he not waste the opportunity to get even closer to the circus.

“…I would be… _honored,”_ he forced through gritted teeth, and the man’s eyes widened with delight, his laughter borderlining on hysterical as he shook Zed’s arm in delight.

“Fantastic! Wonderful! I never leave myself in someone’s debt, you know—” he chattered as Zed finally shook him off his arm, a little more forcefully than he needed to. The ringleader didn’t seem to notice, still jabbering giddily as Zed made his way back to his partner.

“Come to the training grounds tomorrow,” Master Hasin called after him as the man stomped his way down the sidewalk, “and I’ll give you the address!”

Zed chose not to answer.

His storm continued down the length of the sidewalk, until the carriage their informants had called for them was visible under the streetlamp at the end of the concrete path. Ripping the uniform open and scattering the gold buttons at his feet, he shoved the knives on his arms down the waistband of his pants before pulling the scratchy red fabric away from him. He could feel the weight of the stack of bills the cotton candy woman had given to him still in the pocket, but it meant about as much to him as the uniform or even the woman herself.

A disposal bin rested underneath the light of the final streetlamp, and Zed shoved the coat of the uniform deep into the stench of the garbage before climbing into the carriage to meet his master, his partner not but a breath behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I literally love each and every one of you ;w; Thank you for the kind words, motivation, and patience!!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: fairly intense sexual situations, mentions of underage interactions, and general sleaziness that Zed has to put up with and not kill anyone over.

_A deep laugh, the sounds of slicing flesh. The feeling of having a knife in your stomach, burning and helpless. Blood—so much blood—splashed over the walls, staining your clothes, pooling at your feet._

_Bodies. You count them. One, two, three, four. Your fingers tap against your thigh as you do. The fourth ends with a flourish, a critical strike to your heart._

_The tree. The lotus. The piles of rotting flesh, of dead lovers and children, piled high like garbage. Your stomach would be roiling were it not for the knife pinning it in place. You look down. There is no knife._

_You look back up, and he is there._

_A wash of glowing light, barely in human form, arms outstretched to either side._

_The Golden Demon._

_Except he is not golden, he is death and dripping in crimson, and the only discerning features you can make out are the white glints of his teeth. Pointed canines, tombstone-straight incisors. He seems to be saying something, but the searing pain in your body deafens you. It is gone from your stomach and has made its way to your heart. You want to leave, but the same stabbing knives have pinned your feet to the floor. You don’t need to look down to know there is nothing there._

_The homesickness makes you want to vomit, and you only want to be as far away from this place as possible._

“… _ngh…”_

The pain was too much to bear, and Zed launched himself up so quickly from his bed that his head spun.

“Hng… _dude…”_

Zed was barely aware of an arm across his waist, and when he turned towards the source of the words, he was surprised to see Shen laying on his stomach next to him.

“What’re y—”

His hand flew up to his mouth to keep himself from retching. A dull ache still throbbed in his stomach, and he pushed Shen’s arm away from him roughly. The kinkou barely protested, moaning sleepily and pulling his arm back to his side.

“…the fuck are you doing here,” Zed finally managed, and when Shen didn’t reply right away, he reached over and punched him sharply in the arm. Shen let out a tired yelp of protest, weakly slapping back at his leg.

“…you wouldn’t… you wouldn’t shut up…” he mumbled, yawning halfway through his words. “Kept making noises in your sleep, thrashing around… figured if I was with you like we were kids you’d calm down…”

“We’re not kids anymore, _Shen,_ get the fuck out of my bed,” the ninja snapped back, pushing him so hard it nearly sent Shen flying off the edge of the bed. The kinkou let out a whine of protest but attempted to push himself up to his knees. After a moment though, he collapsed back down, this time facing the opposite side of the room.

“Just let me sleep here…” he muttered, and not a second later he was snoring. Zed’s nose wrinkled in disgust, but he couldn’t deny his partner’s presence was comforting, as much as he tried to push him away during times of weakness. Shen was as close to home as he could get in this place, and the slow rise and fall of his back as he breathed was a reassurance that he wasn’t the only thing alive in the room.

Zed glanced around the empty space, dark save for the light cast by the moon through the window panes. No other sound could be heard but Shen’s snoring, and many times he’d woken up like this to the still night air, wondering if he was the last person on earth.

Maybe if he were, nothing could scare him any longer.

His body was sticky from the sweat of nightmares, and he kicked off the remaining bedsheets before forcing his head back down on his pillow. He kept his eyes open, but the ceiling held just about as many answers as the inside of his eyelids did. His hands folded across his chest. He could still feel the errant beating of his heart, and for a moment, he felt for a knife, even if he knew the sentiment was stupid and irrational.

 _“Ngh…_ Zed…”

The ninja didn’t have to look to know Shen was talking in his sleep, a particularly loud snore following. He may have chuckled had the weight on his chest not been so heavy.

What was it about this place that affected him so badly? What was so different from the scores of men he’d killed for the sake of peace, the spirit monsters he’d slain for balance? The ceiling continued to be devoid of answers, so he closed his eyes. He saw not black but red, and he couldn’t help but sigh.

The morning couldn’t come fast enough.

* * *

 

“Sa— _Zed,_ so glad you could make it my boy.”

Zed kept his stride even as he walked towards the ringleader, the echoing footsteps of his partner and their master close behind. For a moment, Hasin’s eyes flickered back to them with somewhat of a sour look, but he regained his composure with a forced smile.

“I have to thank you again for yesterday night, I was a tad inebriated and those fellows took us by surprise…”

“…I’m sure it was worrying,” the ninja forced back, recalling no stench of alcohol on the man. Excuses for weakness made his blood boil, but the two men behind him were relying on him to keep a cool head, so he added a pained smile as well.

The ringleader nodded sagely, adding, “T’was, t’was… but enough about me, let’s talk about _you._ An invitation for tonight should call us square, yes? Plenty of… _company_ to be kept during the performance. We’ll find you whomever you like. Blondes, redheads… dealer’s choice.”

 _Bribing him with prostitutes._ “Ah, I see.”

“And you know, plenty of men if you are of… the _other_ persuasion.”

The circus master winked knowingly at him, but Zed couldn’t be bothered to change his expression.

“What time?” was all he replied with. The man faltered for a second, finally picking up a hint of his indifference to the whole thing, but couldn’t seem to quite make up his mind if it was sincere or not.

“The performance will begin at eight sharp, in the private theater at the mayor’s estate,” Hasin replied, reaching into his breast pocket for a notebook. He spoke as he scribbled: “Wear your best, as the dress code is more stringent than yesterday’s. We’ll be rubbing a few elbows with the finest, and the company you keep reflects upon yourself.”

Zed was sure that was a nice way of saying _don’t you dare embarrass me,_ so he just nodded as if he cared.

“Other than that, just enjoy the show, you may recognize some of the acts… _oh!_ Cherry! Come here, darling.”

He stopped to beckon at someone over Zed’s shoulder, and a moment later, a woman skipped up to join the ringmaster. He wrapped an arm around her waist possessively, making her giggle and place a hand on his chest.

“This is Cherry, our lead silks performer,” Hasin announced, keeping his eyes on the girl. “You may have seen this cheeky little thing yesterday night.”

The girl pawed coyly at him, flipping her auburn as she laughed. Zed couldn’t deny she was a conventional beauty—small form, prominent chest, flirty personality—but he remembered how she’d slapped Khada the night before. It was the stagehand’s own cowardice that allowed her to treat him that way, but it was this woman’s rotten personality that had lashed out at him in the first place.

“Pleasure,” he managed, but Hasin didn’t seem to hear him.

“Cherry will be performing tonight, which is a _shame._ Would love to have her company for the evening.”

The woman shushed him, raising a manicured finger to his lips. She leaned towards his ear, her sticky red lip gloss barely brushing him, and made a show of loudly whispering, _“Maybe later tonight.”_

Sterling laughed and let go of her waist, sending her on her way with a small slap to her backside. The woman shrieked with laughter, waving behind her at the two of them before flouncing off.

“Yes… real shame,” he mused, eyes following after. He cleared his throat, waving a hand dismissively. “That should be everything you need. Feel free to wander a bit, but I’ll be seeing you tonight.”

He proffered a hand that Zed took, but his handshake was weak, and he disappeared a moment later. Zed heard footsteps behind him, and he turned to face his company.

“Good for you Zed, this’ll be great for surveillance,” Shen applauded him, a sunny smile on his face. The ninja glanced over at his master, who nodded in agreement.

“It may not be something you enjoy, but this circus is still the best lead we have. The Demon has not struck again in this town, and we’ve received no reports of his activities outside of the area, so the possibility that he is still here is very real.” Kusho placed a large hand on his shoulder, holding it firmly as if to keep his student anchored. “We trust you implicitly.”

“…what will you two be doing while I’m at the party?” Zed asked, almost disappointed when Kusho’s hand slid off his shoulder. Shen shrugged lightly.

“Patrolling the streets probably. Checking in with other informants, exploring some rumors if we can. The Blossom Festival is but a few short months away, so it doesn’t give us much time to prepare if things start to get dicey.”

Zed sighed and rubbed a hand on the back of his neck, allowing himself to complain for a moment in front of his master. “Can’t you just go in my place? You did as much as I did yesterday, and I’m sure _Cherry_ would appreciate your company more than mine.”

Shen’s face flushed as Kusho shook his head.

“The invitation was extended to you and you only, my student,” he predictably stated. “We wouldn’t want to get on this man’s bad side if we intend to stick around longer. Plaguing your mind with frustration won’t leave your head clear for tonight. Think responsibly and keep our duty to the forefront of your thoughts.” He paused for a moment. “Maybe some meditation is in order before you leave. It’s been a while.”

Zed glanced at Shen, who met his eyes immediately; generally when Kusho ordered them to meditate at home, it usually ended in them sneaking off to the bar and rushing back to take showers in an attempt to hide the smell.

“…yeah, maybe meditation will help,” he agreed kindly, edging away from his master towards the edge of the campgrounds. “Might do me some good.”

“I’ll join you, always nice to have company,” Shen piped up, and Zed’s gait remained slow until his partner was by his side. Shen managed to keep his face straight until his back was to his father, a shit-eating grin overtaking him as soon as they were clear. Zed hid his own, edges of his mouth puckering as he quickened his pace.

“And boys?”

“Yes, Master?”

“…I mean actual meditation, not the kind found at the bottom of a mug.”

Both students’ shoulders hiked up, freezing for a moment before continuing their walk with a little less enthusiasm than before.

* * *

 

By the time Zed was ushered past thick curtains into the VIP parlor, he was wishing he’d gone out with his partner and gotten sloshed anyway.

The room was hazy with cigar smoke, lazy rings encircling their owners’ heads. Zed’s nose wrinkled; some of the rolled cigars he was pretty sure weren’t filled with tobacco. The parlor was even darker than the balcony the night before, which probably had to do with the muffled giggling and the occasional moan or two.

“Zed! Over here, my boy!”

The ringleader waved at him from the other side of the room, the champagne in his hand sloshing around haphazardly. He seemed back into his cheery, grateful mood, this time from the alcohol in his system. There was a woman with her legs crossed sitting delicately in his lap, different from the performer he’d met earlier; her blonde, curly hair was cut into a short bob, set off by the sultry red lipstick that painted her mouth. She was completely topless with her breasts shoved unceremoniously towards her patron’s face, a wispy tulle skirt circled around her waist. She glittered in her beauty, with diamonds adorning her ears and wrists, a strand of them falling down her neck into the crevice between her breasts. As Zed approached, she turned coolly to whisper something in the ringleader’s ear, keeping her eyes flickering toward him as he sat down in one of the plush red velvet chairs across from the two. He set his hands on the armrests, but quickly changed his mind and placed them in his lap when he felt patches of dried _something_ coating them.

“Oh darling, you should just stay here, I can treat you to whatever you like,” Hasin responded as the woman finally pulled her mouth away from his ear.

“Oh? I could go for a spot of brandy, then.”

“So it— _hic—_ shall be.”

The ringleader downed his glass before waving it again at a server, shouting for brandy. The blonde woman’s gaze was locked back onto Zed, so he glanced around nervously instead.

A few men sat around them, presumably company of the mayor. A majority of them were entertaining their own company; a few sat snogging their dates for the evening, others chatted as their partners moved their hands between their legs, and one of them occupied himself with a boy that couldn’t have been above sixteen winters but was dressed to the same degree as the ringleader’s woman. Zed felt his face burn with a nauseous anger he’d never felt before. He remembered the bleakness of Zhyun’s streets, the kindness of the server woman at the inn, the absolute desolation of the village on the outskirts of the town. This place was a parlor of sin, self-absorbed and revolting.

“Ah, the brandy—Khada, what a fine look you’ve graced us with tonight, _ha!”_

Zed’s attention snapped back into focus at the name, and he turned to see a thin figure bending down over the ringleader with a tray of brandy. Hasin and his woman both accepted a tumbler, and as the server turned, Zed couldn’t help his lips parting in surprise.

The stagehand was adorned in a floor-length dress styled like the traditional tea ceremony dresses of the Ionian capital, but instead of the usual flowing sleeves, the garb was sleeveless. A triangle cut into the front from the collar of the dress down to his chest showed smooth, pale skin beneath. He could barely recognize the man with his hair up in a small, tight bun, his eyelids painted with heavy ink rimmed in shimmering gold paint. The ornamentation matched the gold threads embroidered into his crimson silk dress. He looked like a different person entirely—terrifying in his sexuality—but when amber eyes flashed dangerously up at him, there was no doubting it was Khada Jhin.

If the man recognized him, he made no effort to show it.

“…brandy?”

The stagehand leaned down to offer him the tray, a stray strand of his dark hair falling down the sharp curve of his cheekbone. Zed sat for a moment, thoroughly stunned, before keeping his eyes on the man as he reached for a glass. The server rose immediately after.

“Khada, be a doll and take my champagne glass,” the ringleader slurred at him, and as he turned, Zed saw that the back of the dress was missing almost in its entirety, revealing sharp shoulderblades and the rippling muscles of his back. It cut into a deep triangle and stopped barely above his backside, the curve of which showed itself as the man bent back down to tend to the ringleader. The ninja raised the glass of brandy to his mouth.

“My stagehands may not be the most useful of things, but some of them sure do clean up nicely, eh?” Hasin mused, the comment clearly directed at Zed. “Would never know trash could turn into treasure just by looking at them. _Hah!”_

This time as Khada rose, his master reached out and grabbed his backside, sliding his hand between his legs as much as the dress would allow him. The stagehand didn’t waver, simply smiling submissively before turning to make his rounds to the mayor’s guests. As he passed, Zed looked for some telltale sign of anger—stiff muscles, a hidden fist, the grit of a jaw—but found none. Only the smell of mint and tea leaves was left in his wake.

“Yer lookin’— _hic—_ awffly lonely o’er there Sam, let’s get ya— _hic—_ some company… you, what’ser name, get o’er here!”

Zed’s upper lip curled when he realized he’d been talking to him, and as the ringleader snapped his fingers, a girl came skittering over to them. It was another of the stagehands, dressed similarly to Khada but with her dress cut short beneath her backside.

“Y-Yes, Master Hasin—”

“Do yer job, Mary.”

He gestured towards Zed, and as the girl glanced over at him she jumped in fear of what she saw. Her hands clasped quickly together. The look in her eyes was conflicted, but she chose to obey the ringleader, shuffling her feet haltingly towards the man. Like the boy on the other side of the room, she couldn’t have been but fifteen or sixteen, and as she climbed up onto the ninja’s lap, he was surprised by how little she weighed.

“Hi, Mary,” he offered, his voice low. The girl looked as if she were about to cry, eyes sparkling with repressed tears as she sucked in her lower lip.

“…m-my name’s not Mary,” she murmured eventually. A small gasp followed, correcting herself, “B-But you can call me what you like—!”

“What’s your given name?”

She risked a glance over at him, thick lashes clumping with now-wet makeup. “…Mae.”

Zed glanced over her to see Hasin’s expectant look, and Mae visibly shook as Zed reached over her lap to hold her thigh. She trembled as he leaned forward, his other hand pushing her dark hair back behind her ear.

“I’m not going to do anything to you, Mae,” he whispered to her, the hand on her thigh reaching for her short dress and pulling it further down her leg. “I’m not in the habit of putting my hands on children. Stay with me for the rest of the night. Don’t leave my side, and I won’t let anyone touch you.”

The clasped hands in the girl’s lap twisted nervously, and she closed her eyes, allowing herself to take a deep breath to collect her demeanor.

“…thank you.”

Hasin seemed satisfied that with this, his debt was repaid, and he returned to nursing his tumbler of brandy and fondling the woman in his lap.

After an hour or so, the theater stage set at the far end of the parlor lit up. What few patrons that weren’t high or sloppy-drunk applauded. A man walked onto the stage to recite a speech, praising the mayor and pausing for the appropriate applause. He acknowledged the ringleader as well, who relished in the spotlight that shone momentarily above him. Not quite willing to relinquish the attention, the woman in his lap grasped his face and turned it towards herself, pressing her lips to his sloppy mouth. The man lapped it up, wedging his tumbler to the side of his leg to free his hand and squeeze one of the woman’s exposed breasts. Even after the spotlight faded, she wiggled her hand between his legs with a small, fake moan, and Zed rolled his eyes back to the theater stage. Mae kept her gaze to the clasped hands in her lap.

The rowdiness subsided as the performers took the stage. Most of the women wore nothing but sparkling, tasseled hearts over their nipples, complete with a matching skimpy bikini that rose to a thong in the back. What few males were present were either muscular, oil-slicked men or small, hairless boys, both in shimmering speedos. The first few acts were mostly acrobatic in nature—Zed recognized Cherry by her clunky silks performance—but they turned darker and darker in nature as the night went on. After a particularly sensual dance number ended, the stage cleared, and a blindfolded, rope-tied woman was wheeled to the forefront. A few other women followed, all in latex corsets and bikini bottoms, and for the next half-hour they all took turns whipping and rubbing the woman with feather fascinators. Mae immediately turned to bury her head in Zed’s shoulder, and he wrapped his free arm around her, sliding his hand nonchalantly under her hair to cover her ears from the woman’s erotic screams.

Bondage had never been Zed’s thing, nor did he ever imagine it would be. But the sexual tension in the air was palpable; emanating from the stage, it wafted like an aphrodisiac through the crowd, stirring the audience into a frenzy. The amount of moans around him grew louder and more frequent, and even the woman in the ringleader’s lap had migrated down until her knees were on the ground and her face was between his legs, her short blonde hair tangled up in the man’s chubby fingers. Zed wouldn’t allow himself to close his eyes for fear of standing out, but he picked a spot to stare at out in the distance.

He’d grown up in an environment where he stood equivalent to women; he thought of Akali, a bright and determined student, younger than the girl who trembled in his lap. He thought of the female masters he’d grown with, respected pillars of the dojo and valued members of the village.

That wasn’t to say he’d been raised devoid of sexuality—no, he’d had his share of one-night stands, away from the dojo where he could explore himself without shame. He’d had a few relationships with the girls at the dojo as well, but most if not all were built on the foundation of mutual trust and understanding. He couldn’t even say the prostitutes he’d coyly experimented were half as disgusting as most here presented themselves.

Or, in the case of Mae and probably many others, were forced to. His vision blurred as he mollified himself into his earlier meditative state.

The scratchiness of his borrowed suit, given to him by his Zhyun contacts. The weight of the girl now crying on his shoulder. The soft fabric of the crimson silk he held steadfastly in his hand, determined to keep her covered. The way his weight sunk into the velvet chair, how his feet rested in the stained plush carpeting. He forced away all other distractions, all other noises, until his body became so hypersensitive that it overloaded the rest of his senses.

_I’m glad Shen wasn’t the one to come here._

Half an hour later and he was free.

A few of the patrons rose when the curtains of the stage fell. Others continued acting out their own performances, and a few still were passed out where they sat, either from drinking or fucking or both. The ringleader fell into the latter of the categories, snoring loudly with his head lolled back onto his chair. By the time Zed had come to the blonde was gone.

“Mae, the performance is over. Do you have somewhere to go?”

Zed spoke softly as he slid his hand from her hair, smoothing it down gently. The girl’s body was stock-still, though her eyes were wide open in shock and fear. After a moment she leaned up, streaks of black ink from her eyelids streaking her face and the bridge of her nose.

“I… I do…”

“Can you show me where? I can walk you there.”

Mae nodded, sniffing quickly before reaching up to wipe the wet makeup from around her eyes, smearing it even worse than before. She started to climb down from his lap, but paused, turning to look him squarely in the face for the first time that night. Her eyes roamed his face like so many others before her had, but instead of feeling anxious, Zed welcomed the innocent curiosity she exuded. Her gaze lingered longest on the scar that cut across his nose, and before he could react, she leaned up and gently pressed her lips to the old wound.

She smelled like neither liquor nor cotton candy, and a warmness spread through his skin where her lips had graced him.

“Pain, pain, go away,” she said softly, the tips of her fingers on either sides of his face. She nodded, satisfied with her work, before sliding off the man’s lap. He stood, and before he had a chance to proffer his hand, she took it. She led him out of the parlor, skittering closer to him and bumping into his legs every time they walked past someone who glanced down at her hungrily.

They wound down the halls of servers’ routes until the finally reached a dingy stockroom. She pulled at him anxiously when it was in sight, and eventually released his hand as they approached the door.

Scores of stagehands were piled together like he’d seen them back at the practice grounds, moving around quickly to help one another change and wipe off their matching makeup. Mae made her way towards a group of children around her age. Some of them stood quietly, too shocked to move, while others sat balled up and crying, their dresses torn and their legs pulled protectively up to their chests. Mae moved towards the youngest few of the crying children, wrapping her arms around the hysterical ones and rocking them back and forth. Zed watched her for a moment, understanding where her need to heal him came from, before turning away from the room.

He wanted to rip his suit off, wanted to get out of this place. He wanted to go back to the inn and drown his nausea in alcohol until his master found him there the next morning. A glowing exit sign pointed him around the corner, and he strode briskly towards it.

“Mmm… _ngh…!”_

Zed’s feet skidded to a standstill as he rounded the turn, staring stupidly down the hall.

The performer, Cherry, stood with her back against the wall, arms wrapped around her companion. The other wore a skin-tight velvet dress with a tulle trim, latex boots snaking up the backs of her calves. A golden fan hung at her waist, and as she threw her head back to let Cherry suck at her neck, he saw jewels sparkling on her fluttering lashes.

_Ah._

“What is that whore up to now?”

Zed’s gaze flickered from the two women as a figure glided to his side, arms crossed condescendingly. The makeup and outfit remained the same, but the timid, obedient man from before had disappeared, replaced by his usual holier-than-thou demeanor.

“They’re lovers, of course, but she has one in every town,” Khada Jhin continued, uncrossing one arm to inspect his nails. His thumb ran over his forefinger, carefully scrubbing it over the lacquer, and it was only then that Zed noticed the dark crimson polish that coated his nails. The stagehand didn’t look entirely displeased about it, but then again, he only seemed to carry two expressions.

“I have no interest in gossip,” Zed admonished, tearing his eyes away to look back at the aristocrat and the performer. The circus performer had her hand up the aristocrat’s dress now, the other moaning loudly, and Zed wondered why he’d even bothered to look again.

“So you’re just a voyeur, then.”

_“Fuck off.”_

“You first, you’ve clearly got something to gain by still being here,” Khada replied, voice dripping with venomous beguilement. His thin fingers raised to rest his chin in his palm, locking eyes with the ninja as a thin smirk cut across his face. “Is that how it goes for you? Is this what—how do you say— _gets you off?”_

Zed’s snarl was audible as his hands shot out and grabbed the man’s collar, bunching the crimson fabric of his dress so tightly that a few of the finer gold threads snapped beneath his fingers. His blood was boiling, and every nerve in his body told him to rip this man to shreds and release the anger he’d felt all night.

“Careful there, this fabric’s worth more than ten of your worthless lives—”

 _“I could break you,”_ the man seethed, his voice barely escaping through bared teeth. For a moment, Khada looked as close to surprised as he could be, but a second later calm relief flooded him.

“…there it is, finally.”

Zed was shocked when the man reached up and removed his hands with little force; the lack of anger surprised him enough to make his hands drop.

“You’d make a wonderful actor, that’s for sure,” he quipped, nonchalantly brushing off his shoulders and straightening the collar of his dress. “By the way you’ve been acting all night, it was a wonder you didn’t set fire to the place… not that my _buffoon_ of a master would have noticed anyway. So much rage in your eyes, and yet you managed to keep it restrained. Your mask is almost as solid as mine.”

His head rose, and Zed couldn’t help but flinch when their eyes met. The amber of his eyes shone fiercer than the gold paint that lined his eyelids, and something about them made the ninja’s stomach drop.

“…it’s nice to see you angry, Zed,” he added softly, and his clear voice took the ninja aback. It had been the first time the man had spoken his name, and something about the way he said it made him wish he could hear it again. “I don’t much care for speaking to puppets, so to see your true nature is… refreshing.”

“…yeah? And your _true nature_ is this?”

Zed gestured lamely, meaning for the response to bite back, but the stagehand just waved him off.

“I use what masks I have to make it by. Some work better for different situations. But yours doesn’t quite seem to fit, now does it?”

Khada took a step closer, and though Zed willed his body to move back, his feet were pinned to the floor with something like invisible knives.

 _“What plagues you?”_ the man asked smoothly, and his voice matched the silkiness of the costume he wore. “What makes you so obstinate to hang onto a persona that is not yours?”

The moans down the hallway were getting louder and more feverish.

Their faces were mere inches apart now, and Zed was having trouble breathing. If it were Shen he could just push him away, and if it were his master he could simply tolerate it; but something about this man petrified him, in a way not unlike his nightmares but with a warm syrup replacing the pain in his body.

“…I…”

Khada’s hand rose, and his fingers delicately brushed the underside of Zed’s chin, holding him there.

“You can keep that mask around others, but around me, take it off. I much prefer the angry you, the you who can’t keep his emotions contained, who fights freely against what he hates. I’ll be happy to watch your performance, but I’m _far_ more interested in the man behind the curtain.”

His hand slid away, the tips of his fingers lingering as long as they could, leaving cold trails before dropping entirely.

“It was a pleasure to see you tonight, Zed,” Khada mused as he began to turn away towards the stockroom. The way he said the man’s name sent an icy bolt straight into his stomach. “Though I wish the circumstances were considerably less… _sleazy.”_

He kicked up the heel of his crimson dress for emphasis, revealing his usual ripped black tights underneath. _Ruin beneath the beauty. Trash beneath the treasure._

“Hope to see you around. The _real_ you.”

Zed stood, paralyzed, as the man rounded the corner and disappeared from his sight. As much as he wanted to dismiss his words as drama—like a beggar playing as a shrink—something about his tone of voice made him want to believe them. The nightmares, the pain, the way he pushed Shen away… he thought of home, and the man he was there was nowhere to be found in Zhyun.

_…a mask, huh._

The ghosts of Khada’s fingers made him shiver, and he reached up to furiously wipe them away, even though the feeling lingered. An uneasy feeling crept up his back, something he couldn’t place, and he spun quickly towards an adjacent hallway to find another exit.

_It’s nice to see you angry, Zed._

_I could break you._

Somehow, the words didn’t seem so different to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a disgustingly long chapter completed and proofread at 6am, so I hope it makes sense...
> 
> Hooray for precisely manipulative Jhin!
> 
>  
> 
> EDIT: Changed part of Zed and Shen's discussion when Zed woke up to find Shen sleeping next to him. You can see the reasoning as to why in the comments in chapter 8 (thank you @acerdryad for talking about it with me!).


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: none really, some recollections of sexual stuff from the previous chapter.

“Zed. Wake up, _now.”_

The voice sounded vaguely familiar, but it was as if the words were being spoken through a pillow, and that was good enough reason for Zed to want to ignore them. He stayed where he was, his head nestled in his own arms.

“I’m so sorry,” the voice continued in a different tone, reverbing in another direction. “Please, let me pay his tab. Shen, take your _brother_ back upstairs.”

Zed protested as someone grabbed his arms, hauling him off his barstool.

“C’mon, stand up, you can do it.”

It took only a moment to realize that no, no he could _not_ do it, so Zed’s arm was thrown across a pair of shoulders and a hand was wrapped around his waist.

“Dude you are in _so_ much trouble,” Shen hissed at him, crab-walking as he dragged his partner towards the guest quarters. “Master stayed up to wait for you to come back yesterday, and a courier from the circus stopped by this morning. Master Hasin requested you at the grounds at midday.”

The thought of the ringleader and the sights and smells from the night before made Zed’s stomach upheave in protest, and when he started to burp and retch Shen nearly dropped him.

“Come on Zed, get it together, I’m the one who has to haul your ass upstairs…”

Zed just moaned.

One cold shower and a smack on the head later, Zed was on his knees in front of his disgruntled master, head pounding.

“Zed, you are not one to be so _irresponsible,”_ Kusho was saying, pacing back in front of him with his arms crossed. He paused every so often only to pinch at his brow with his thumb and forefinger as if he were fighting a headache himself. Looking closer, he had bags under his eyes, and Zed felt pangs of remorse at the thought of him struggling to stay awake all night to watch for him.

“I’m sorry, Master…”

“How was I to know what happened to you? That you’d made it back alright? What if you’d fallen victim to the Dem—”

He stopped himself, covering his eyes with his hand, and Zed heard Shen let out a small sigh.

“Fa—Master, I think he understands,” he interjected, rising from his seat at the foot of his bed. He walked over and placed a hand on his father’s shoulder. “You’re tired. Why don’t you get some rest and I can escort Zed to the fairgrounds?”

Kusho didn’t respond, but nodded silently. Rubbing his eyes, he turned towards the door, pulling it open and disappearing. It closed with the solemnness of a coffin lid. Shen stared at it for a moment, listening to his father enter the room next to theirs before turning to his partner.

“…I’m not even sure you’re in your right mind to understand, but when you come to, just know that you had him worried to death,” he said, an edge to his voice. Shen’s brow was furrowed in disappointment, but he still walked over and offered a hand, helping Zed up off the floor. “Let’s just get to the fairgrounds before you screw that up, too.”

* * *

If Zed was hungover, the ringleader was worse.

Sterling Hasin wore a tophat with a wide brim and dark glasses over his eyes, but even then his face was pale and the dark circles under his eyes ballooned beneath the rims of his glasses. He wobbled a bit as he walked, and he might have looked like a Freljordian penguin were it not for the cane that assisted him.

“S—Zed… so nice to see you,” he greeted, words low in volume. Zed was thankful he’d set aside the boastful attitude for the sake of both their heads. “Hopefully last night was, ah… to your liking.”

“Yeah, sure,” was all Zed offered back, the two of them pausing to blink and collect themselves for a moment. The ringleader cleared his throat, waving his free hand as a space filler before he could muster words.

“Yesterday, we had the misfortune of having a couple of our stagehands run off after the performance—”

Zed truly, sincerely could not muster even an _ounce_ of sympathy for the situation. Part of him hoped Mae had been one of them.

“—which unfortunately has left us shorthanded around the grounds. Are you sure you wouldn’t want to work some manual labor here? Even if you won’t be a bodyguard?”

Shen nudged the back of Zed’s heel with his toe, and the ninja shrugged.

“Think my brother could grab a job too?” he replied instead, throwing a thumb over his shoulder at the kinkou. The ringleader looked vaguely pained for a moment, though Zed couldn’t tell if it was from the suggestion or the hangover.

“…that’s fine,” he responded after a moment. He glanced over at Shen. “You—”

“Shen,” Zed corrected.

“— _Shen._ Go find the animal’s tent, you can take over the hand’s duty there. And Zed, I’m sure you’re aware of where the stagehand’s quarters are. Go see what they need. I’ll be in my quarters…”

The ringleader now looked thoroughly exhausted, and he spun around a little too fast, tottering for a moment before dragging himself towards the only set building on the grounds. It looked something like a small hotel, and Zed squinted at it for a moment before turning to his partner, who looked mildly disgruntled.

“Zed, why did you—”

“If I have to suffer through this, so do you,” Zed almost snapped, pointing a finger at him. Shen frowned, pushing his hand away. He couldn’t consciously say that this was a waste of time, and Zed knew that.

“…if this interferes with our work, I’m leaving,” was all he could come up with before turning to stomp towards the animal pens. The ninja couldn’t really blame him with being fed up. He was too, and more than that, Shen was probably still mad at him for worrying their master. Zed watched him until he had made it to the animal cages and gotten someone’s attention before turning towards the stagehand quarters at the edge of the fairgrounds.

Again he went past the bright tents and performers, and again he went past the scores of practice and prop tents. The dirt got dryer and smoother as he approached the stagehands’ quarters, tamped down by hundreds of scurrying feet. Just like last time, scores of young children hauled props bigger than they were and worked the same jobs as the adults.

“’Scuse me—”

The stagehand he reached out to kept their head down, bustling past with no acknowledgement. He turned towards another.

“I’m looking for work—”

Again, he was greeted with no reception. He tried not to get frustrated, understanding that they would face severe consequences for not completing their work in an orderly manner.

“Can someone—”

“Zed?”

The ninja looked up at the familiar voice, meeting eyes with Khada Jhin across the way. His skin crawled at the interaction, and suddenly the chilled lines beneath his chin were back. He stood for a moment, slightly dumbfounded when the stagehand smiled lightly. His arms were laden with laundry but he still turned to meet him.

“Interesting seeing you here,” he mused, the thin smile still on his face. His eyelids were lowered in some sort of sincerity, but it still made Zed’s hair stand on end.

“…I’m looking for work,” he gave in finally. “A couple of the stagehands ran off yesterday night.”

“I wasn’t aware.”

“Hasin wants me to fill in for them.”

Khada’s eyebrows rose into an elegant smirk. “And you agreed to it?”

Zed hesitated answering for a moment, not sure how to explain why exactly he had.

“…I need the money,” was the best he could come up with, and Khada let out a small _hmm._

“Well, no one here will help you, certainly not in the daytime. You look as if last night is still affecting you,” he commented abruptly. “Care to join me for a cup of tea?”

Zed was taken aback by the offer, but found himself replying, “S-Sure…”

Khada’s eyes shone as he turned to head towards one of the tents.

The tents weren’t clearly marked as to what was for work and what was for housing. Khada found the one he was looking for, however, and after ducking in after him, Zed saw that there didn’t seem to be a difference.

The tent was sparse in personal belongings, and from the looks of the hay-stuffed stacks on the ground, two other people seemed to share it with him. A single kerosene lamp hung from the ceiling, unlit, and as they entered the tent, Khada dropped the clothing in his arms onto a nearby pile, just one of many. He reached for the lamp, unhooking it smoothly and placing it on the ground. Zed stood awkwardly for a moment, unsure of what to do as the stagehand strode towards what seemed like his space. It was the tidiest of the three, with an evenly-packed bed and a velvet blanket covering it. A large basket with straps rested at the head of it, and he opened it, pulling out a small tea kettle, a pot, and two ivory cups. The kettle had seen far better days—the handle was rusted, and there were too many dents to count in the sheet metal of its body—but the pot was pristine, its matching cups as well.

“You may sit.”

Khada’s voice made the ninja jump, and he sat down where he stood with a little too much force, crossing his legs by force of habit. Khada didn’t pay mind to it, returning back to the lamp and unscrewing the top. He turned the gas up high and clicked the sparker to the side of it, igniting it into a thick flame. The kettle was placed, water was poured into it out of a bottle from the basket, and Khada seemed satisfied. Zed didn’t know what to say; he didn’t speak, and the stagehand followed suit.

Returning back to his bed, he pulled a few pieces of clothing from the pile, carefully lowering himself down onto his makeshift mattress. A sewing kit came out of the basket next, and he set to work mending the cloth in his hands.

“It should be ready in a moment.”

“Huh?”

Khada’s eyes flashed up at him, just for a second, before focusing back down on his work.

“The _tea,”_ he replied languidly, pulling a long trail of golden thread towards the ceiling. Zed watched him tie it off a few times, making a small, neat knot before slicing the tail with a small pair of scissors. “Feel free to make yourself useful in the meantime.”

Without indication, he clearly meant the pile, and Zed hesitated.

“Ah, I don’t…”

“You work here now. You’ll have to.”

“No I mean I can’t…”

His voice trailed off weakly. Sewing had been his worst subject growing up; all of the kids at the dojo had been trained to be entirely self-sufficient, from hunting to gathering to working in the village and mending within the household. He’d been so completely bad at sewing that his mentors had given up on him entirely, giving him other odd jobs to do in place of it or—at worst—having him become a human thread holder for them as they gossiped and sewed. He still shuddered at the thought of having to spend hours sitting there with spools on the tips of his fingers and balls of yarn in his palms, almost crying out of boredom as he listened to diplomatic debate and the odd bit of gossip here and there about the neighboring dojos.

“Can’t?” Khada repeated, eyes still glued to his work. He was done with another piece, neatly tying it off once more and folding it to place with the other. “Or won’t?” he added as an afterthought. Zed bristled.

“I can’t sew, _okay?”_ he snapped back, and he was both surprised and riled that the other man let out a small snort of laughter. He added in a sneer to save face, “I don’t have time to learn such _useless_ things.”

“Oh yes, very useless,” Khada just replied with mild sarcasm. _Knot, snip, toss, onto the next one._ “So useless, in fact, that you’re emulating the notion currently.”

Zed felt his eye twitch. “Give me that!”

He crawled over on his knees and snatched the cloth—needle, string, and all—from the other man, shuffling back over and crossing his legs angrily. This couldn’t be that hard; sure, he’d failed at it as a kid, but come on, there’s no way he couldn’t have improved with all the training and precision practice he’d endured over the years—

Khada had quietly gotten out more materials to work, and in the time he’d finished two more pieces of stitchwork, Zed had barely struggled through one. His hems were jagged and uneven, the tie-off knot was huge, and he’d elected to cut it with his teeth rather than scissors, so a small tail hung off the end of the thick knot. The stagehand offered him another piece, and not wanting to be bested, Zed took it. He hid his other handiwork to the side of him out of sight, scowling as he tried to focus and do better on this one.

Eventually, the tea kettle on the lamp began to whistle, and Zed threw down his work as if the call for end-of-day had sounded. Khada chuckled, but said nothing as he reached for it.

“What do you take in your tea?”

“Sugar,” Zed replied with a challenge in his voice, so Khada let it slide. The ninja watched as he took the kettle and poured the hot water into the teapot, covering it and letting it seep for a moment before daintily serving them both tea. His fingers were long and pale, and only a few held the lid of the pot, elegant but firm. The rest were left to curve into the air, his nails trimmed but with a layer of dirt caked beneath them; the red polish from the night before was now gone, and he was back to being the dirt of the troupe. He scooped a few small teaspoons of sugar into Zed’s cup before stirring and handing it over, leaving his own plain. Zed mumbled a thank you as he took it.

The tea’s aroma was rich and strong, and as he held it to his lips, the steam rose up through his nostrils and cleared some of the hangover fog in his head. He was grateful for it, closing his eyes for a moment to inhale it deep into his lungs.

“What is it?”

Zed wondered why he’d even asked—he wasn’t much of a tea drinker in the first place, that was Shen’s thing—but the stagehand replied with a pleased tone of voice: “It’s an oolong base with rose hips and orange peel. I collect leaves as we travel and mix my own.”

“Ahh…”

He finally gathered himself to take a sip. He immediately gagged at the bitterness of the rose, far from sweet enough for his tastes. Khada wordlessly handed him the sugar. He seemed a tad judgmental about it, but it didn’t stop Zed from scooping three more heaps into his cup.

As if distracting himself from the monstrosity that was now the sugared leaf water in Zed’s hands, Khada pointed out quickly, “Your sleeve is torn.”

The drink was now sweet and fruity rather than straight and tangy—much more to the ninja’s taste—and he took a long drink while it was still hot before looking down at his wrist. Indeed, an incision split the seam of his sleeve near the underside of his wrist, leaving a bare triangle of skin exposed. He frowned slightly, not remembering where he’d cut it, and the frown deepened as Khada’s thin fingers wrapped around his wrist. He could feel the frost through his sleeve, and it made his stomach uneasy.

“I can be the one to sew it, if you’d like,” the stagehand offered, his voice carefully controlled to minimize the patronization. It still didn’t help, Zed snatching his arm back in displeasure.

“I can handle it _myself—”_

“Come now, we’ve had our banter over your inadequacies. Now let me fix it for you.”

Zed’s face completely downturned in indignation, his mouth parting open and closed silently for a moment as he tried to think of what he could _possibly_ say back to this man. Khada was waiting patiently, fingers reaching out to clasp around his wrist once more, and Zed watched the corners of his mouth upturn in something close to both amusement and sincerity.

“…it’s too much trouble for me to do it myself,” he ceded, an indirect giving of permission without betraying his own ego. Khada allowed it, squeezing his hand for a moment before releasing him.

“I hope you don’t mind gold thread, it’s all I have at the moment,” he conversed leisurely, setting his tea cup down. He rose, long legs unfolding to take a few steps over to the ninja. He settled back down gracefully next to him, and Zed felt his shoulders hike in discomfort. The man himself smelled like mint and tea leaves despite the dirt and sweat that caked him. Zed suddenly had a vision of him in the dress from the night before, his bare back curving through the window of his dress. The black eyeliner had suited his sharp eyes, and he thought about the way the ringleader had fondled him. A wet heat flooded his face up to his ears.

He wondered if Khada had faced the same fate that night that the other stagehands had. He wondered whose hands had ran up his dress, whose fingers had twisted through his hair, and something about it made him sick to his stomach. He jumped as his warm body made contact with Khada’s icy hands again.

“Continue enjoying your tea, this should only take a moment.”

Zed couldn’t face him, but he watched his hands curiously as he worked.

Khada pulled a long thread of gold string from his spool, slicing the end neatly with his scissors. He was quick and accurate in threading the needle and beginning his task. Zed was aware that at any moment, his hand could slip and scratch his skin, could swerve and plunge into the thick blue vein of his wrist. Even something small like a needle could be a weapon. He wasn’t in the habit of just letting people touch him, particularly with something close to dangerous in their hands. He knew the anxiety he felt didn’t emanate from the needle, but rather the hands that held it. He felt as if the danger lied in trusting this man without question, and he found himself squirming internally.

This man was dangerous. He wasn’t quite sure how, but he was, and something in Zed’s head told him to leave him alone before it was too late.

“There, done.”

Khada’s words were soft, and Zed watched with something like horror as he forewent the scissors this time, leaning down and bringing the man’s wrist up to his mouth to slice the thread with his teeth. His breath was hot—not chilly as he’d expected it to be—and his lips just barely graced the skin of his wrist as the gold thread slipped between his teeth. One swift motion and it was done, the man moving back to admire his work. Even done so roughly, there was barely a tail of thread left at the end of the delicate sewn knot.

“Figured that was more your style,” he smiled, and when Zed made the mistake of raising his head to meet his eyes, he was surprised to see the stagehand smiling—truly, dazzlingly, purely smiling. He slid his hand carefully from his grasp, and Khada let it drop without ceremony.

“…thank you,” Zed managed, but his voice hitched, and the other man chuckled at him.

“Go ahead and finish your tea, I’m sure we’ve shirked our duties enough so far. If I don’t finish the mending by sundown, my supper is as good as gone. No rest for the _wicked.”_

“Ah, r-right… I’ll… try and find something to do,” Zed managed. He glanced over at the one and a half garments he’d attempted to mend. He wasn’t so sure he wanted to sew anymore, nor did he want to be in the presence of this man any longer. He finished the rest of his now-lukewarm tea in one gulp before standing. “Thank you for the tea.”

“It was my pleasure.”

Zed turned to exit the tent awkwardly, but he paused, hand outstretched towards the canvas entrance. He couldn’t take it anymore; the question was eating at him, roiling around in his stomach like something dark and icy.

“…Khada?”

“Yes, Zed.”

The sound of his voice saying his name sent shivers up his spine. He let his hand fall, but his back stayed turned away from the man, unable to face him as he took in a breath.

“…yesterday night, did you… were you an escort for the guests as well?”

He wasn’t sure why the question mattered, and he wanted to slap himself for letting it eat at him so deeply. His hand rose again to pinch at the bridge of his nose, wincing as his fingernails scraped the rift dug across his face. His headache was now back in sudden full-force, and he just wanted to leave without hearing the answer.

“N-Never mind, it’s none of my business—”

A soft chuckle made him turn, and Zed just barely glanced over his shoulder to see Khada smiling bitterly up at him. Something about the look made his heart start to crack.

“…no. No, I was not an escort,” the stagehand responded carefully. He suddenly looked so small, sitting back on his knees with his hands clasped in his lap. “I never have been and I never will be.”

After a silent moment, his expression turned from something bitter to something sad. He opened his mouth again, but the words that fell from his lips were strong and defiant.

“No one touches me,” he said, words like a warning. “I won’t let them.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...............I.................... okay. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


	9. Chapter 9

Shen had been _incredibly_ disgruntled the entire walk back to the inn, which had made things less than pleasant for the ninja who walked with him. While most of Shen’s earlier anger at his partner was now gone, it was replaced with the frustration of manual labor, and he made sure Zed knew _exactly_ how many blisters and animal bites he’d received that day. His frustration was short-lived when they returned, however, as several solemn contacts from Zhyun stood unceremoniously in their room upon their return. Amidst them was their master, whose tiredness from before was now replaced with weariness.

“Shen, Zed. Come here, please.”

The two trudged over to him. Kusho raised his hand and set it on Zed’s shoulder as they approached, his hand heavy but warm. He met his student’s eyes for just a moment before turning his head to speak.

_You are forgiven._

“There’s been another attack.”

His hand slid from Zed’s shoulder, leaving him feeling exposed and cold. Shen shifted nervously next to him.

“Do we think it’s the Demon?” he asked, and the contact standing next to them cleared her throat.

“That’s unclear as of now, but we’re not ruling out the possibility,” she explained with a slight frown. “The manner of death is similar, but the numbers are… unusual.”

“Unusual?”

“There were only two victims, a child and an adult. They both seemed to be in costumes of some sort, maybe part of a play nearby.”

All at once, Zed felt his stomach start to drop, a haunting suspicion beginning to crawl up his spine. “What costumes were they wearing?”

The contact turned to one of her colleagues, gesturing with a hand. He walked over and handed her a bag, which she held out to the ninja.

_Gold embroidery. Crimson tulle. Black ink smeared over a silk cloth stained with blood._

“…they were from the circus. Those were the uniforms of the stagehands at the mayor’s private performance yesterday evening.” Zed felt physically nauseous, and though he wanted to push away the clothes before him, his hands stayed locked by his sides. “Th-the child… was it a boy or a girl?”

“We can’t tell either genders at this time. The mutilation was too severe, they would have to undergo autopsy for a best guess.”

“The ringleader of the circus had said that a few of the stagehands of the circus had run off,” Shen offered, eyes remaining fixated on his partner as he spoke. “From what you’ve shown us it may have been less of a case of running off and more of a case of abduction and murder.”

“There’s a possibility it was directed towards the circus, or even a possible case of wrong time wrong place. Right now we have no way of knowing,” the contact concluded. “But as it stands, it was best to let you know, considering the severity of the violence at hand.”

“What happened exactly?” Shen asked uneasily. “What makes you think it could possibly be the Demon?”

“The bodies were all but torn to shreds and mixed together… were it not for the precision of the cuts and the lack of bite marks, one would think it was a wild animal attack. The lack of humanity shown to the bodies was…” She paused, raising a hand to tap a finger to her lips as she considered her next words. “…I witnessed the massacre at the farming village,” she resolved to say. “The carelessness with which the victims were treated was similar. Were it not for the two heads present I’d say it’d be difficult to even determine that it was two victims at first glance.”

Zed’s gaze was at the floor before he’d even noticed it himself, and as he clenched his fists together, he felt Shen brush against him. The gesture was small, but for all it was worth, it kept him grounded.

“Please keep us up to date on the situation. With the magnitude of his past performances, it’s possible that there are more bodies unaccounted for.” Kusho’s words were heavy, and the rest of them nodded in agreement.

“Understood. You will know when I do.”

“Thank you.”

The contact excused herself, and as the rest of the squad began to filter out of the room—careful to space their exits to avoid suspicion—Master Kusho turned towards his students.

“Zed, I’m assuming you know something about this?” he asked, his voice a tad softer than normal. The ninja couldn’t meet his eyes as he shrugged.

“Just that the ringmaster had said a few of the stagehands had run away…”

“It seems _runaway_ was not the right conclusion,” Shen added after his partner trailed off. “Zed and I were offered jobs in their places. It seems now more than ever staying close to the theater might be necessary.”

Shen placed a hand on his shoulder, almost like a quiet apology for earlier. Zed wanted to shrug it off, not wishing to be touched, but he didn’t feel he had the strength to.

“It seems that may be the right decision. Please remain aware of your surroundings as you continue to work at the grounds.” Kusho let out a small sigh. “There aren’t many leads beyond this, but I will follow up on the murder results and continue patrolling with the others. We will keep each other updated on anything we find.”

“Yes, Master.”

“For now, shower and rest. Dinner will be in an hour. We can discuss later where to go from here.”

The two of them bowed, and their master tilted his head back. Shen nudged his partner as his father left.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” he commented, and when Zed didn’t respond, he offered, “Why don’t you tell me what happened during the mayor’s performance? Come on, I’ll wash your back.”

He tilted his head toward the room’s shower, but Zed waved him off.

“Just… just go alone. I’m going to sleep.”

“What about dinner—”

“Shen,” Zed responded tiredly, and even though Shen’s brows crinkled, he looked off to the side and nodded.

“…understood. I’ll tell Master you’re not feeling well.”

The two parted silently, and Zed walked over to flop in his bed, keeping his face in his pillow even with his breathing obstructed.

He needed to know if it was Mae, but he feared the answer. He thought of the villagers on the farm, how they’d been rotting and torn to shreds, and he couldn’t bring himself to think of the girl as disemboweled and tossed aside like a piece of trash, especially not with the life she’d been forced to lead. If he hadn’t been the one to have her the night before, how scared would she have been? Taken advantage of and then murdered. He hoped, at least, that it had been in a break for freedom. That even if just for a moment, she felt unshackled and free, that for a moment her efforts weren’t for nothing.

Ah, but they were, in the end.

_This isn’t fair. This isn’t fair._

Zed stayed with his face in his pillow long enough for Shen to finish his shower, and he turned his head to the side and pretended to sleep to make him leave him alone. Eventually the kinkou left the room, and Zed was alone in his thoughts again, forcing himself not to wonder if Mae had been the one they’d found.

_I’m sorry. I’m so sorry._

Repeat the words as he may, there was no reply.

 

 

“Delighted to see you again. Glad the work hasn’t scared you away yet.”

Zed frowned, mostly from irritation gained by lack of sleep. Khada was standing there waiting for him once more, this time with yards of shimmering cloths and golden ropes thrown over his shoulders. He looked laden down, but he still stood tall with his back straight, maintaining his royal figure.

“Hauling props and feed isn’t going to scare me away,” he snapped back upon reaching him, and Khada smiled thinly.

“Not that much of a wimp, then.”

Zed let out a disgruntled _hmph_ but otherwise added nothing. Khada shrugged half of the cloths on one shoulder at him, and the man caught them quickly before they hit the ground.

“Not sewing today. Take these with me to the costume tent.”

Zed followed silently.

The costume tent was more of a collection of dirty, open tents with racks of costumes both currently in need of repair and in the process of being completed. Zed spied a dress form sporting an outfit barely made of sparkling crimson straps as he followed Khada through the mess of stagehands. His face soured; _oh, but of course._ He turned away from it with his upper lip curled, stepping past rows of large sewing machines and diligent weavers on massive looms to follow the lanky stagehand before him.

“You can place them here,” Khada said eventually, stepping just beneath the awl of an open tent. It was mostly full of children, and he passively pushed one aside with his foot to get to a pile of similar cloth. “They’ll be sewn into costumes with the rest. The supplier’s cart is just outside the gates, so we only need to carry the remainder of it here.”

Zed frowned as he stepped aside and gestured for the ninja to place his own load down. He threw it with little ceremony, earning a raised eyebrow from the other.

“You don’t have to kick the kids around—” he began in a snarl, shoulders hiked. His lack of sleep was more than putting him in a fighting mood, and Khada’s passiveness was the perfect thing to egg him on. Before he could take a step forward, a small voice piped up behind him.

“Ze… Mister Zed?”

The man turned with the same enraged look on his face, but it dropped like a stone instantly as he looked down. Mae stood timidly some feet behind him, but as soon as their eyes met, her entire demeanor brightened significantly.

_“I knew it! It’s you!”_

Zed allowed himself to smile a little, leaning down to speak to her on her own level as she started forward. But he was almost barreled over in surprise as she ran towards him and threw her arms around his neck, her thick hair bunching up in his face around her. The girl squeezed him tight for a moment before she pulled back and—with a loud _smek—_ planted a kiss on the bridge of his nose.

“What are you doing here?!” she giggled excitedly, cheeks rosy, as if surprised by her own forwardness. She looked so different than she had before; the makeup was replaced by dirt and grime, and her hair was scraggly and knotted, with a few twigs of straw caught up in it here and there. It kept the anger Zed had felt in his stomach from before, boiling low within his belly. But the place she had kissed him on his face was still as warm as it had been, and he stood to hide his embarrassment, reaching up to his ruffle his own hair and hide his expression from Khada.

“I, uhh… I’m working here now,” he responded finally, and when Mae’s eyes couldn’t get any wider, they sparkled instead.

“O- _Oh!_ Oh, that’s great! Oh, well, not great, but I’m so glad you’re here! I thought—” She paused for just a moment, her face caught in both curiosity and an unpleasant memory. “…I-I thought you were someone important,” she finished finally, and Zed filled in the blanks.

“I was an unfortunate guest for one night only. But I got to meet you,” he added awkwardly, not knowing what to fill in the gaps with and desperate to change the subject, “and that was… that was good.”

Mae smiled contently at him, a few flecks of caked dirt falling from around her face. She clasped her hands in front of her, and Zed was uneasy when he saw the chipped red polish still on her nails.

“I’m happy I met you too,” she returned with a sigh in her voice. “I’m glad I didn’t have to… _oh!_ Oh, there’s someone I want you to meet! Or, uh, there’s a lot of people you should meet—”

Mae scampered off quickly enough that Zed stayed rather than followed, and Khada took her quick exit as an opportunity to glide gracefully forward in her place.

“Popular already,” he mused, and Zed couldn’t tell if his voice was more annoyed or condescending. His tone was neutral at best, but from what he knew of him, the man was anything but. He squinted as Khada opened his mouth again, as if that would help him further determine was sort of attitude he held at the moment. “I’d be careful if I were you. The children around the circus grow quickly, and they never seem to stick around for long once they’re grown.”

Zed stared at him for a moment. “What does that—”

 _“Zed!_ Mister Zed!”

Mae returned just as quickly with two other children in tow, one in each hand. One girl was younger and bulked instantly at the sight of him; the other—a taller, older boy with droopy eyes—kept a neutral look as he let Mae drag him along.

“Look look, this is my sister—Lila, don’t be afraid, say hi—”

Mae dropped the boy’s hand to grab both her sister’s shoulders, thrusting her forward excitedly. Zed dropped down to his knees quickly, but even that action was too much for her, and the girl began to openly sob. Khada barked a short laugh behind them as Mae quickly wrapped her arms around the girl, cooing and tutting at her.

“Lila—Lila come on, you’re six now, be a big girl—” Her voice lowered, but much to Zed’s internal chagrin, he could still hear her even over the child’s cries. “I know he looks scary but he’s a good person. I promise he won’t hurt you.” Mae sighed in exasperation, patting her sister’s back as she looked up at the man. “She’s still a baby,” she explained with a small shrug.

She turned towards the boy instead, whose expression hadn’t changed since they arrived. “This is Leo, he’s kind of like my brother but we’re not really sure.”

Zed wasn’t completely positive what that meant, but he nodded all the same. He extended a hand awkwardly. “Nice to meet you, Leo.”

The boy’s eyes were practically dead, and his intensity didn’t waver even as he reached out to meet him. Looking at him closer, his muscles were more developed even if he was thin, and Zed decided that he was probably around eighteen or nineteen. A thick black choker encircled the boy’s neck, and it moved as he swallowed, switching gazes from Zed to the man next to him.

“…Khada.”

“Leo,” the man responded, to the ninja’s surprise. Mae shuffled uneasily for a moment.

“…hi Mister Khada,” she added, and the stagehand just hummed in response. Lila whimpered next to her.

“Are we done here?” Khada asked, folding his arms and inspecting his nails on one hand. His patience was clearly expended in the presence of the children, and Zed frowned as he remembered what they’d been fighting about in the first place.

“I have some work to do, but I’ll see you later, okay Mae?” he told the girl, and she smiled at him through her uneasiness.

“Promise we can see each other again?”

“Uhh… promise.”

Khada’s eyes were boring holes in the back of his head, but when Mae reached out for his hand he let her take it. She squeezed it once with a soft smile before turning, taking hold of both of the others like before and leading them out of the tent. Lila was anchored to her arm, and while Mae practically dragged her, Leo patiently took half-strides to hang back with them both.

“Get back to work, that was a waste of time,” Khada deadpanned, bumping into his shoulder as he pushed past the other man. Zed raised a foot to kick him in the backside out of conditioned response—the seat of a few of Shen’s pants still carried an imprint of his boots from numerous assails—but he caught himself, clenching his fists as he tried to think of the reason they were there in the first place. It wouldn’t do to blow it for himself and his partner and master just because of this one annoyance of a man.

He chose not to respond, and for the remainder of the day, he remained wordless as he carried loads of cloth back and forth from the edge of the property to the tents until the blood-red sun sank beneath the circus grounds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the patience as always my friends, and LORDY I didn't realize how many comments the last chapter had and I am grateful as heck even if I don't always get to respond to them all :^))
> 
> Next chapter should be a little lighter/fun so look forward to it!! Also fixed something I was a iffy on and in truth probably should have been a little more thoughtful about writing in chapter 7, so a small change has been implemented between Zed and Shen's discussion when Zed found Shen sleeping next to him. Thank you @acerdryad for talking about it with me! (You can read the discussion as to why I made the changes in the comments on chapter 8).
> 
> OH SHIT ALSO I tried to draw what I thought Jhin would look like while he was all dressed up for the mayor's performance, you can check that out below!! Already I want to re-do it because of artist anxiety/it not quite fitting what I had in mind exactly but c'est la vie, I'll draw it again eventually around schoolwork lol. I keep sketching him but I'm still not sure what I want him to look like unmasked. If you have a tumblr feel free to come talk with me! <3
> 
> http://tokio-star.tumblr.com/post/163231887469/the-stagehand-didnt-waver-simply-smiling


	10. Chapter 10

The air felt different when Shen and Zed entered the grounds that day, and they both stopped to look at one another as a few released animals stampeded by. No one seemed particularly keen to stop them, nor do much of anything else for that matter. Almost everyone was out and about on the grounds, and Zed recognized a few of the stagehands far outside the bounds of the costume tents.

“What is going on here…?”

“I have no fucking clue.”

Zed stared, unamused, as a man rode past ass-naked on a saddled brambleback.

“…allllllright, I’m done here—”

“Mister Zed, Mister Zed!”

 _“Mister?”_ Shen laughed, and Zed held back on punching him as Mae, Lila, and a few other children came bounding toward them. Leo was with them again, steps quick but calm, a small but thin smile on his face.

“Zed, we found you!” Mae sang happily, and as she got close enough to grab his arm, her face reddened at the sight of his partner. “…who’s this?” she asked shyly, and the others giggled and twittered amongst themselves.

“This is Shen. He’s my, uhh… brother,” Zed finished lamely, and his eyebrow rose as Mae squeezed his arm.

“Hi Shen,” she replied softly, and Lila had the most difficulty repressing her giggles. Shen smiled back as best he could, leaning closer to her point of view.

“It’s nice to meet you, young lady,” he replied with his best diplomat smile, and for a moment, Zed felt angry; he remembered how terrified she’d been when she first met him, and he clenched his fists as he tried to reason his way out of it. _She was scared. She was in a new dress in a new place, to be handed out as a sex doll. Of course she’d be scared, and not just of me._

“What’s going on, Mae?” he asked instead, trying not to grind his teeth. The girl sighed whimsically, glancing up to smile at him.

“It’s travelling day, so all the performers and the ringmaster are gone. It’s a free day for us,” she explained. She swung his arm back and forth as she spoke, keeping her eyes on Shen. “The performers put on a small show for advertisement, and they stay in the town for the night so we don’t have to mend or clean anything. So we get to play all day!”

The others bounced up and down excitedly apart from Leo, who just watched them fondly instead.

“Well if there’s free time we’d love to play with you,” Shen offered kindly. Mae’s hands tightened into a death grip around Zed’s arm, and he glared tiredly in the direction of his partner.

“We’re playing with costumes if you want to join us!” she replied happily, and when the others began to jump and run off, Mae hung back, even when Shen followed them. She tugged Zed down to her level, whispering frantically in his ear, _“He’s so cute!_ I’m so glad you were here, I never would have been able to talk to him otherwise. Too scary.”

She leaned forward to bop her head against his arm before letting go of him completely and running to join the others. For a moment Zed was stunned, an awkward warmth in his chest. Even for just a moment, he was her anchor, and despite how he was or how he looked he was something other than scary to someone. He let her run back and pull him by the arm and out of his thoughts towards the costume tents.

The rest of the evening was calm, full of the children laughing and playing. Shen got shoved into so many uniforms and dresses Zed lost count by the end of the night, and he himself got sore shoulders from carrying the kids around. At one point he’d had Mae on his shoulders with a cowboy hat on her head and an insanely long trenchcoat over the two of them, a gap in the buttons letting him walk around and chase the others. It made him feel like he was home again for however short a time, playing with the dojo kids and the orphans that the dojo cared for. Shen was laughing like he didn’t have a care in the world, and Zed was grateful for the reprieve it gave them both.

The day passed quickly, and night had fallen before any of them noticed. The lights of the circus were flipped on, the strings of bulbs and lit torches giving off the aura of a festival. Without the toil and threats the air was clear and full of revelry. The kids played and screamed until hunger hit, and it washed over the lot of them all at once, stomachs rumbling and complaints being tossed up in the air until Leo finally took control over them.

“Alright, alright,” he called, sweeping his thin arms out as if to encompass them all. “Dinner should be ready soon, go wash up and help with the plates in the dining areas if you want to eat sooner than later.”

“Leo, the others aren’t even back yet, and I don’t want to eat potatoes again,” Mae complained back from her perch on top of Zed’s head. She was anchored to him with her legs wrapped around his neck, hands grasping at his hair every so often as if she thought she’d fall. Leo locked eyes with Zed for just a moment, throwing the man off guard, before he looked up at the girl.

“If you help with the dining, your place will be ready when they come back,” he replied. He reached up to offer her his arms, and she climbed down carefully off of the ninja’s shoulders, sliding into Leo’s embrace and down to the ground. “In fact, I bet they’ll be here s—”

Not a second later a round of hollers and yells came from across the grounds. Leo’s head snapped up immediately, a fraction of a second before the rest of the children followed suit.

“They’re back, _they’re back!”_ Mae and the others cheered, scampering off all at once in the direction of the dining tents and yelling about all the foods the others were bringing back.

“What’s going on?” Shen asked as one of the last of the kids slid down his back, nearly tripping into the kinkou’s legs as he scrambled to follow the others. Zed glanced expectantly at Leo for an answer, but the young man’s gaze was off in the distance.

“Leo?” he prompted, and the boy waved his hand lightly over his shoulder.

“It’s, uhh… the stagehands are back for the evening,” he responded distractedly, craning his neck around like an owl. “They don’t stay in the city, it’s too expensive… they bring food and alcohol back sometimes, the kids are just exci—ahh, _excuse me—”_

He dropped the rest of his sentence to take off towards a crowd of people marching across the circus grounds. The group was still laughing and whooping, some of them waving bottles in the air while others carried what could be assumed to be sacks of food. If any judgement came from their good moods, it was a safe bet to say that most of them were drunk.

“Do you want to eat with Mae and the others?” Shen offered, and while Zed was uneasy at the thought of spending any more time on the grounds, he shrugged rather than decline right away.

“You go ahead, I’m going to look around first,” he proposed lamely, and Shen gave him a look close to disappointment.

“…well, it’s good that you have the objective in mind,” was all he replied with before turning towards where the kids had disappeared. Zed glanced around and turned to duck between rows of tents before the returning group ran into him.

He wasn’t looking for anything in particular, but the idea of socializing with a bunch of strangers made him queasy, let alone a bunch of drunk ones. It felt odd to include himself in an observance of a day he didn’t understand, even if playing with the kids was fun. He wasn’t worked to the bone here every day and didn’t feel like he had the right to eat and drink with them in celebration. Then again, the idea of alcohol sounded good to him; maybe if he could get away with sneaking in a drink or two after most of the festivity had calmed down, he would—

He turned the corner down a row of tents and was surprised to see two figures on the other side. He froze, far enough away from them that he wasn’t detected, but also far enough that he couldn’t hear what they were saying. He squinted for a moment; one of them looked oddly familiar, but he couldn’t place it until the two moved closer under a row of string lights. Zed could see that it was two men now, and he watched as one of them rose his hand sheepishly to the back of the other’s neck, fingers brushing the black band around his throat. _Ah, Leo—_

Zed’s mouth dropped open as the man across from Mae’s brother leaned forward to kiss him, his other hand coming to circle around Leo’s waist. Leo didn’t seem perturbed at all, one hand coming to meet the man’s on the back of his neck and the other wrapping around the other’s own neck. In his shock, Zed failed to notice the hand sneaking around his head until it was clamped around his mouth and jerking him backwards.

 _“Shh,”_ a voice behind him whispered, and Zed’s nose wrinkled immediately at the strong smell of cheap alcohol. He reached up to pull the mouth away from his hand, which fell easily.

“Who the _f—”_

If he couldn’t be more shocked at what he’d just seen, he was surprised to find Khada now in front of him, smiling with ruddy red cheeks. His thin lips were stretched almost across his face in something like delight, and he quickly raised a pointed finger to his mouth and tapped it silently against his lips.

“Leave them,” he appealed. “They don’t get much time together in the first place.”

Zed was now officially close to dumbstruck; he gestured over his shoulder silently, waving his hands in a lack of words. This man—who didn’t seem to give a shit about anyone other than himself, let alone a child—was suddenly defending one. Khada watched him amusedly, small hiccups escaping from deep within his chest every once in a while.

“You look confused,” he offered after a while, and Zed pushed him back further behind the tent, afraid they’d be heard. Khada allowed himself to be moved without resistance.

“You—he—what do you mean?” he stuttered finally, not sure exactly what he should be saying in the first place. Khada shrugged, and in the dim light behind the tents the surface of a bottle shone as he lifted it back up to his mouth.

“Do you want some?” he replied instead, and Zed stared at the proffered bottle warily. “It’s cheap so the alcohol content is high,” he added, shaking it enticingly. Zed’s nose wrinkled for a moment before reaching out to take it from him.

The first drink burned, but it felt good before it felt bad. He quickly suppressed a cough on the way down as his eyes watered.

 _“Noxian Firewater,”_ he wheezed.

“The imitation kind,” Khada chimed after, seeming pleased with himself. He tapped the bottom of the bottle impatiently, and Zed suffered another drag before Khada took it back and drank himself.

“Wh…what did you mean they don’t, uhh…” The alcohol was already going to his head, as dense as it was. It was making his skin feel fuzzy but not uncomfortably so.

“What does it sound like I meant?” Khada replied nonchalantly. He mouthed the sentence around the rim, staring at Zed as he did. It made the ninja uncomfortable, and he took it back again.

“They’re like, like… dating?”

“Do you go around kissing people you don’t like?”

Back and forth, back and forth, drink after drink.

“Not—not usually—”

“I thought you were adult enough to understand a relationship then.”

Zed let the comment go, but only because words felt like they wouldn’t stick in his head. The circus lights around them were dazzlingly pretty, and they cast colored illuminations over the other man’s worn out feet.

“So why do you care?”

“I don’t. It’s just… pitiable.” Khada paused his alcoholism for a moment to gaze off into the distance. Zed turned his head lazily to look over his shoulder, but nothing was there. The man was simply lost in thought. “This place is full of dead dreams,” he admonished finally, grasping the near-empty bottle close to his chest. Only a small hiccup from deep within his bones broke the seriousness of the moment. The glow of alcohol on his gaunt cheeks suddenly looked sad and muddy in the dim light, and Zed found his mouth opening stupidly.

“…did your dreams die?” he asked, and the smell of alcohol was cheap and sweet as the man sighed.

“As long as I cannot perform, I will remain grounded, unable to fly. At this point it’s no longer even a feasible dream. It’s something that haunts me, an image that is dead and gone.”

Zed stared at him.

“Why are you so dramatic,” he deadpanned, and his hand flew up to slap itself over his mouth as Khada brought himself back to face him. He thought the man might be angry, and he considered apologizing to save face for the sake of his mission—but before he could even process what to do, Khada Jhin smiled at him, and he was radiant.

“So alcohol helps get you back to yourself,” he accused. His voice was close to teasing though, and he reached out to drunkenly push at his chest with the tips of his fingers. “Alcohol and voyeurism, good to know.”

Zed’s face quickly colored in both anger and embarrassment. “I wasn’t watching them—!”

“You’re cuter when you’re angry, too.”

For a moment, the ninja was speechless, and Khada laughed openly at him. Zed had never heard him laugh before, and the sound was dark and lush, if not even a little sinister. But the freeness of his expression and the vulnerability of his posture made him impossible to be scared of in the moment.

“Wh-what do you mean _cute,_ that’s—”

“True?” Khada offered slyly, and Zed felt himself recede as the man leapt forward like a ghoul, ethereal and terrifying. “You don’t find yourself attractive in the least? Granted, your personality is a _grievance,_ there’s no denying that. But if you kept your mouth shut someone might be drawn to you.”

Khada released a small hiccup as Zed found it within himself to frown, the scar on his nose stinging as it crinkled.

“Same could be said about you,” he snapped back, pushing the other man away from him. Khada didn’t seem to mind, and as he settled back on his heels, he seemed chuffed at the response.

“So you think I’m attractive. I’ll make sure to use that to my advantage.”

“That’s really all you took from that?”

“It was the only new piece of information to me, yes.”

“Well there’s a difference between being attractive and finding someone attractive, so don’t flatter yourself,” the ninja seethed. Khada smirked at him, a moment of clarity in the haze of booze.

“So which do you find me, then?”

“Did you not hear what I just said—”

“Say it clearly, Zed,” Khada interrupted, and again the man’s stomach dropped at the sound of his name emanating from the man’s thin lips. “Which is it? Do you think I’m an attractive person? Or do _you_ find me attractive?”

He waited with some semblance of patience, his face still irritatingly calm and in strict contrast to Zed’s roiling stomach. Zed waited for a moment before trying to reach for the bottle in Khada’s hand in the wake of a response, and he snapped when the stagehand swung it back.

“Give it to me—!”

“That’s not an answer, Zed.”

“I’m not fucking drunk enough to answer, so just _give_ it to me—”

“Hey hey, what’s all the commotion?”

The two of them jumped at the interruption, and as they both spun around, Zed all but slapped the bottle out of Khada’s hand for himself. The other man let go of it easily, and it pissed him off to think that Khada allowed it to be taken rather than his own speed being responsible. He was angry enough about it that it didn’t offset him when he recognized the interruption taking the forms of Leo and his partner.

“Khada,” Leo added, and like before, Khada nodded, responding, “Leo.”

“Khada,” Leo’s partner chimed in rather cheerily, and Khada afforded him a small if slightly hesitant nod.

“…Tyree,” he replied, and the other man waved his hand.

“I’ve told you, just Ty is fine, Tyree is too formal for me. I hear it every day, I don’t want to hear it in my off-time too,” he added almost bitterly, something that confused Zed. Leo patted his arm and glanced over at the stagehand sympathetically.

“What are you doing out so late, Khada?” he asked, his voice smooth. He hugged Ty’s arm contently. “You’re usually asleep by now.”

“Just trying to spend some quality time with someone who’s learning to tolerate me.”

“Speak for yourself,” Zed snapped back. Leo let out a low chuckle, like there was something in particular he found bemusing.

“The others are gathering for a bonfire at midnight if you wish to join us,” Ty piped up. “The both of you.”

“Will there be drink,” Khada demanded staunchly, and Ty all but bust out laughing.

“Yes yes, if that’s what’ll get you to come then yes!” he guffawed as Leo smiled dryly next to him. Zed blanched when he turned to look at him expectantly.

“I… need to get back to my father,” he blatantly lied, and the rest of them just nodded. Zed bowed his head slightly in apology.

“Maybe next time,” Ty acknowledged gracefully. He reached an arm around Leo’s shoulders to pull him closer, and for a moment the graveness in the teenager’s eyes vanished as a smile overtook his face. “Shall we make our ways over?”

“Khada?”

“I will join.”

Khada looked over to gaze at Zed momentarily, eyebrows back to their normal haughty position. But he still looked pleased by something, and he reached over to take the bottle back from his hand. Zed released it limply.

“Next time,” he echoed with a small few-fingered wave around the bottle. Zed’s stomach jumped, and before he spent another second with the man’s gaze on him, he turned and stomped off towards the exit of the circus grounds.

* * *

 

The next day, Zed came to work in the tents to the uncharacteristic sounds of laughter. He wasn’t perturbed by it exactly, but he hesitated for a moment before walking into the mending tent.

A few of the children Zed recognized from the day before were running around the tent laughing. If it wasn’t odd to see the children having some semblance of fun during a work time, it almost knocked the ninja over to see Khada in the middle of it. While some of the kids were playing by themselves and making tents of clothes to run underneath, several others had hooked themselves to Khada’s bent arms and were hanging like swings beneath. The man himself didn’t look particularly amused, but he didn’t look to be his usual nasty self either. He maintained a look that was neutral at best and mask-like at worst. He didn’t speak, but the children didn’t seem to mind, content to climb his thin body like a jungle gym and let the break from work bring them happiness.

Zed couldn’t help the small “huh” that escaped his mouth unconsciously, and the sound sent Khada’s head snapping towards his direction. His arms dropped unceremoniously and the children dropped with them, laughing like it was part of the game.

“Get back to work,” he snapped, but the others just clung to his legs instead. Khada tried to shake them off but they stuck to him, dragging his face down into an ugly snarl. Zed waved his arms and rushed over as the man opened his mouth in what came out as nothing short of a roar.

_“I SAID GET BACK TO WO—!”_

“GOOD MORNING KIDS!” Zed yelled over Khada’s outrage, and they shrieked and fell off of Khada to run over to him. “I know I know, good morning!” he repeated, patting backs and heads as they grabbed his knees and tried to climb up his arms as well. He risked glancing up at Khada; the man’s face was smooth and displeased, with thin eyebrows downturned sharply. His mouth stayed in a straight line, and Zed swallowed hard and adverted his eyes before they could meet.

“Why don’t we all get back to work and play later,” he addressed them, and despite slight disappointment, they all agreed rather cheerily and ran off to the other tents. He and Khada were left alone, and he cleared his throat as the man straightened his back.

“Cretins,” Khada opened with, and Zed sighed.

“It was nice for you to play with them.”

“…I’m trying to become more _tolerable.”_

Zed looked up as the man turned away from him. After a moment he could feel the color in his face rise as he recalled all of what Khada had said to him the night before, as well as the insinuations he’d made.

“…you remember what you said yesterday—?”

“That and nothing else. Now stop talking, I have a hangover.”

The man stumbled over to a pile of cloths, snapping something about having to make them into pocket squares. Zed just watched him, and for a moment—just a single moment—a quick smile spread across his face. He wanted to argue with him about getting caught being nice, because something about a grown man’s embarrassment over basic human decency—or, at least, _this_ grown man’s embarrassment—made him want to laugh. But it was a warm sort of amusement, one that he held onto for the rest of the day, picturing him with children hanging off his arms as he got yelled at for messing up stitch after stitch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hahahaha get fucked Zed
> 
> As always thank you so much for the support, I love each and every comment I get and it really keeps me going!!! I'm as excited for the story as (hopefully) you all are!!! <33


End file.
